


hard on a heart

by LoversAntiquities



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Attempted Murder, Billy Hargrove Needs a Hug, Blood, Dark, Detective Noir, Detective Steve Harrington, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Future Fic, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Season/Series 03, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sharing a Bed, Steve Harrington Needs a Hug, Suicidal Thoughts, Therapy, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-09
Updated: 2020-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:54:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 23,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23086591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoversAntiquities/pseuds/LoversAntiquities
Summary: After someone with a vengeance attempts to murder Billy, Steve is on the case. But what seems so straightforward turns out to be much more intricate, and neither Steve nor Billy are entirely ready to face just what being together again might mean, and together, they face the reality that working with one another is better than being apart.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Comments: 10
Kudos: 87





	1. The Attempt

The night is cold. Colder than Billy expects for Hawkins winters, and colder than the worst night in California. Colder than anything, really, clinging to him like a second skin, pulling him down by his knees. Dragging his feet, he takes step after measured step, gulping down air like water, anything to get his lungs to fill. He aches. The cold exacerbates it. His skin stings—his body craves the release of death.

Gravel crunches under his feet, residue from road wear, the crumbling asphalt. He stumbles over a jut in the road, sending him careening into the snow, his arms doing nothing to help protect him. Sparks cascade across one side of his face. His temple comes up wet; warmth spills down his face, dripping off his chin.

He can’t feel it. Can’t feel anything but the cold and the dull pain in his stomach, the wetness seeping into his shirt, his jeans. Looking down won’t make him feel any better. Instead, Billy makes his way to his feet and looks straight ahead, wobbling. The world spins. He spots a light just over the hill, not too far away. Definitely too far away. Acid crawls up his throat.

_I’m dying_ , his mind supplies, ever helpful, and Billy can’t help but believe it. This is really it—he’s dying. He can’t remember how, or why, but he’s dying. Red mars the freshly fallen snow, the only evidence that once, Billy Hargrove existed. Past tense. By his estimate, he doesn’t have much longer.

His shoe squelches, loud in the dead of night. Not even the crows watch him; the owls leave their nightly vigil. Something crunches in the woods, out of eyesight. Black taints his vision. A tear spills over once he makes it up the hill, and another when he falls into the box on the side of the road, door ripped off, glass shattered. The receiver drones when he picks it up. Someone ripped out the phone book days, maybe even years ago.

At home, Billy has an address book, filled with a few scattered numbers: his mom back in Bakersfield, Neil and Susan, Tommy, a few of his former teammates. He remembers the last from the list, shoves a quarter into the slot and dials, the keypad coming away red, stained. The phone rings, just in time for his knees to give out, for his heart to give a painful lurch. _Oh no_ , he thinks, as he collapses against the inside of the phone booth, smearing scarlet down the glass pane.

The receiver clatters, smacking into the small desk, the metal siding. “ _Hello_?” a voice says, distant, faint then close, a pendulum under fluorescent lights. “ _Hello, is anyone there_?”

“Help,” Billy garbles, mouth full. His last thought, before the blackness creeps up on him, is that he hates the sound of his voice, has always hated it. Hates that out of every number he knows, he had to call _him_.


	2. The Discovery

One word.

For what feels like hours, Steve replays that one word in his head until it loses all meaning, until it becomes foreign in his ears. “I don’t—Why would he ask me for help?” he asks from the passenger seat, fisting the handle above the Blazer’s passenger window. “What does he think I am, his waiter?”

Hopper grunts from behind the wheel. A cigarette dangles from his, lips, smoke streaming from the reddened tip. There out of pure habit, probably; he still reeks of it, along with the entire interior of his Chevy. “Could just be a friendly gesture,” Hopper says. They make another turn, one of several dozen, and head down an old service road running along the outskirts of town.

All of the phone booths in Hawkins proper came up empty. Steve never thought there were that many in town, but life always has a way of proving him wrong. And in all of them, Steve found no sign of Billy Hargrove. Just a few people minding their business and a woman frantically crying over what Steve could only presume was a relationship gone sour. He remembers her, vaguely, from his English class in senior year. He hasn't exactly kept up with his classmates, aside from the few he can still call friends.

Billy fits into the former category. Whether they were ever friends remains to be seen.

“Nothing about him’s friendly,” Steve says, low.

Arms crossed, he watches the pines pass by slowly, Hopper’s Chevy crawling its way up the snow-covered road. Crank call or not, in this weather, Steve worries. Given the circumstances, he shouldn’t, but Hopper was the first one to pick up the phone, and barely hesitated to swing by and pick Steve up, to apparently check out payphones in the middle of the night.

For all he knows, Billy could’ve called from his house. In hindsight, Steve could’ve radioed over Dustin’s stupid walkie and asked Max if Billy was home, but the past is the past, and he did the one thing responsible people do. The only responsible decision he’s ever made in his life—call the police.

Said police officer could care less, from Steve’s guess. “You don’t seem like the type of hold a grudge, Harrington,” Hopper says, finally pulling the cigarette from his mouth. He blows smoke through the gap in the window, only half making it outside.

The scent reminds Steve of his father, the way his office always smelled when he was younger, before his parents bought the scent traps for the house, and before they left altogether, save for holidays and scattered weekends. In the last three years, he can safely say he’s only seen them a dozen times, and on half of those occasions, for more than two days at a time. Steve quit last year, after the hacking cough started settling in. He never should have started; now, the smell turns his stomach, makes him want to stick his head out of the window in negative degree weather.

Wherever Billy is, he better be home and safe.

Wherever Billy is, is not there.

Red glimmers off the snow in Steve’s periphery, illuminated by the Chevy’s headlights. “Slow down,” Steve says and sits up, hands on the dash. His mother would complain about his lack of seatbelt, but she isn’t here. Squinting, he follows the trail—a large splash in the middle of the road, then smaller droplets, visible despite the fresh snow beginning to fall.

Cigarette between his teeth, Hopper pulls to a stop and slings his door open. Steve follows and steps out, tennis shoes crunching. Pulling his coat tighter, he treads into the frigid air, mist pouring from his mouth, his nose. His eyes sting in a sudden gust, tears welling up. Not from the blood before his feet, no—just the weather. Only the weather.

“Could be a deer,” Hopper suggests. Steve sincerely doubts a deer could’ve left that much blood behind without being gutted. “Though, don’t think deer can walk away after that.” He pulls a flashlight from his coat pocket and shines it at the prints in the snow, resembling a boot. One foot drags, leaving behind a pinkening trail as it goes.

“How far’s the closest payphone?” Steve asks and rubs his hands together. He should’ve brought gloves. Should’ve worn more than jeans and one of his mother’s vintage mink coats, but panic does strange things sometimes.

Hopper huffs a smoking breath, jerking his head. “Up the hill. I’m not risking my tires in this, it’s already gonna be hell backing out of here.”

Nodding, Steve looks up the hill. On a good day, he could run the few dozen yards no problem. Tonight, the climb might as well be a feat of strength, one he doesn’t know if he can manage. By adrenaline alone, Steve begins the ascent—a slight incline, really—and squints against the snow blowing in his face. The worst night of the season—Billy had to call him on the worst night in December, and Steve was stupid enough to take the call. He should’ve just ignored it, hung up after the first few seconds, but his conscience wouldn't allow it. Too many people have died on his watch, and Billy won’t be another bullet point on his laundry list of bad decisions.

The light of the phone booth shines bright amid the snow. Steve trudges toward it, ignoring his stinging ears, the tip of his nose. The blood grows thicker and pools in a deeper impression, where at one point, a body fell. Handprints join in, just as red. Not a deer—definitely a person, and said person was alive when they fell and crawled off.

And said person is just a few feet in front of him, slumped over in a phone booth. Steve’s blood runs cold at the sight of him, denim stained red, a large pool of blood spilling from the floor of the phone booth into the snow. He doesn’t move. The wind doesn't move the phone dangling from the hook.

 _Dead_ is Steve’s first thought, followed by, _I killed Billy._ “Hopper,” Steve shouts and closes the distance. Falling to his knees, Steve fumbles with his hands, unsure of where exactly to touch, or if he should. Billy’s head hangs lifeless, curls frosted in ice at the tips; he clutches his stomach, limbs frozen. Sticky red spills through his pale fingers, still warm when Steve touches it, sluggishly spilling free. “Shit, _shit_ ,” Steve wheezes, then clasps Billy’s face.

What he sees there shouldn't shock him, but it does: Billy stares at him with dead eyes, pristine blue gone hazy. Tears spill as Steve clings to him, the only trace of warmth left in Billy’s entire body. “Hargrove,” Steve whispers. He pats Billy’s cheek. Billy doesn’t respond. “Shit, Hargrove, wake up,” he tries again, heart in his throat. He can’t feel his hands, can’t feel the sudden rush of tears flooding his vision. “Wake up, c’mon man. You’re freaking me out here.”

Nothing. A slow, heated breath spills from Billy’s lips. Red stains his teeth, his tongue. He smells like copper—Steve wants to puke.

Another breath, even slower. Billy’s eyes close. “Sorry,” he says, and falls forward—

The dam breaks. “Hargrove,” Steve manages, then shouts when Billy doesn’t move. He shakes Billy, only to find him limp in his arms. “Oh my god—Hopper.” Outside the glass pane, he spots Hopper a few feet away, already calling it in with the radio on his hip. “Billy, Billy, c’mon—”

“ _I need an ambulance half a mile down Cornwallis, I’ve got a body_ —”

He’s not a body—Billy’s not dead, not on his watch. Frantic, Steve pulls Billy into his arms and breathes into his hair, uncaring of the blood seeping into his jeans. “Come on, you bastard,” Steve whispers, rocking him. “Don't leave me, not yet, you hear me?”

 _Not yet_.

-+-

Steve doesn’t remember much beyond the ambulance arriving, beyond Hopper bodily dragging him out of the phone booth so the attendants could assess Billy. They found a heartbeat, somehow, that much Steve knows. Beyond that, the world moves in slow motion, a mass of swirling scenery and dull colors, and the bitter ache of winter’s chill seeping into his bones.

Somewhere after two in the morning, Steve surfaces from his stupor with his coat on backwards, arms slipped through the holes and the bulk of it lying across his front. Off-white walls and the scent of antiseptic greet him. Nurses chat amongst themselves at the reception desk, and a man in the corner sleeps across six plastic chairs, drooling onto the arm of his jacket. A doctor walks past, coat tails swishing as he moves. A hospital, then. Somehow, he found his way to Hawkins Memorial, or maybe Hopper drove him and dropped him off in the lobby. Wherever he is now, Steve can’t find any sign of him, any evidence that Hopper was there in the first place.

Looking down, Steve eyes the dried blood staining his hands, the red soaking the ends of his mother’s coat. She’ll never forgive him if she finds out he stole it. He’ll have to burn it then, or find a drycleaner in another town that won’t ask questions.

It wasn't a dream then, or a nightmare. Somewhere down the labyrinthian halls of Hawkins Memorial, Billy is either alive or dead, kept in a room far away. Unreachable. Minutes—maybe hours—ago, Billy had been so cold, barely had any breath left in him, and Steve held him until the ambulance came, standing in silent vigil and hoping—praying—that Billy would live, at least for Billy’s own sake. Why he cares, Steve doesn’t know, but he couldn't let him die there alone.

Steve couldn't let him _die_.

The hospital operates seemingly on autopilot, like Steve isn’t really there. A strange space, somewhere Steve wouldn’t think about any day of the week, but exists all the same, with people inside going about their lives. He was born here, in one of the rooms on the third floor. His grandmother died a year later in a room just down the hall. Lives begin and end, and the days pass. No one gives it a second thought unless they need something. And Steve needs something.

A blur of red rushes in through the double doors, all panicked limbs and wild eyes. Steve pulls his coat off and stands, and Max rushes into his arms, uncaring of the blood staining his undershirt and his pants, and everything in between. “They won’t tell me what’s going on,” she cries, burying her face in his chest. Steve hugs her as an afterthought. She’s taller now, almost up to his chin. Three years will change anyone, teenagers especially. “They just said he’s in surgery, what—”

“I don’t know,” Steve says, suddenly aware of how brittle his voice sounds. Max notices, but doesn’t comment. “Hopper drove me here, I—Someone tried to kill him, Max.”

Max’s subsequent wail alerts the nurses. Steve waves them off and pets through Max’s hair, a futile attempt to keep her from screaming. She probably isn’t the only crying person they’ve seen this week. “My mom drove me,” she says between gasps. Her fingers dig into the back of his shirt, pulling the fabric down. “His dad—”

 _Speak of the devil_ , Steve thinks the second a man rushes into the waiting room, hair buzzed short, a mustache covering his upper lip. The fire in his eyes sparks something primal in Steve’s stomach, the urge to _protect_ overshadowing all of his other instincts. “Where is he,” the man—Billy’s father, Steve presumes—shouts and slams his hands on the reception desk, knuckles white. “Where’s my son, you mother—”

“Sir, I’m gonna need you to calm down,” a nurse says, backing away.

Her partner in front of the computer reaches none-too-subtly under the desk, triggering a silent alarm. No one comes rushing through the doors for a long few moments, all while the man screams about wanting to see his _no-good bastard of a son before he croaks_ , and Max shivers in his arms, away from his violence for a few precious seconds.

Another red-haired woman runs inside just as two black-clothed security guards follow. She ducks out of their way and backs toward Max and Steve, and Max throws herself into her mother’s arms, shielding her eyes. “Let me see him,” Billy’s father continues to screech. The guards seize him by the biceps and drag him out, ducking flying fists and even harsher words. Steve watches him spit in one of their faces. He gets a fist to the nose for that, one everyone will probably worry about later.

“Steve,” the woman says and extends a hand, cold and clammy in Steve’s. “Max has told me so much about you and her friends. I’m Susan.”

“Nice to meet you,” he says and fakes a smile, the only thing he can think to do. “I’m sorry, I only know what—”

“Mr. Harrington,” a familiar voice calls from down the hall. Steve whips toward the sound and finds Dr. Fitzgerald, looking as chipper as ever despite the blood on his scrubs. Steve is tired of blood, tired of the copper in his nose. “We’re running low on AB negative, so I had to go into your reserves, I hope you don't mind.”

“That’s—fine?” he says, confused, then turns to Susan. “Sorry, this is Billy’s mom—”

“Step-mom,” Susan corrects and shakes the doctor’s hand. “We came as soon as you called, Doctor.”

“I’m actually glad you’re here. Here.” Dr. Fitzgerald motions for the three of them to sit along the back wall, hidden in the corner and facing an unused table. Steve sits adjacent to Susan and Max, Max still attached to her mother’s hip with snot running from her nose. Standing before them, Dr. Fitzgerald shoves his hands in his coat pockets, his eyes locked on Susan. Briefly, Steve wonders if he should be here, if he’s even wanted.

“The most important thing is that he’s alive,” the doctor says. Max bursts into tears again, smothering her face in Susan’s arm. “He received a substantial wound to his gut, but we were able to repair it in surgery. We have him sedated for now, and we’re working to bring his core temperature up, but barring a complication, all he’ll have is a nice scar.”

“Thank you,” Susan says, the slightest bit teary-eyed. Steve wonders if she’s even concerned, if she’s putting on the act in Max’s favor. Though, he has a feeling that if Billy’s father were around, he wouldn't allow her speak at all. “Can we see him?”

Susan and Max stand—Steve makes his way up, but Dr. Fitzgerald holds up a hand. “I’m sorry, Mr. Harrington, but for now, I’m going to have to ask for only family in the room. Go home.” He nods, sure of himself. Frowning, Steve flops back down. “Get some rest. You can come by in the morning if he’s awake.”

“Fine,” Steve replies, as genial as he can manage. Max gives him a sympathetic nod before Dr. Fitzgerald ushers them down the hall toward the elevators. They step inside. At the angle, Steve spots the number three illuminated beside the door. Third floor. The number three is significant in his life. Third time’s the charm, maybe.

Quiet resumes in the waiting room. Not even the nurses speak, nor does the sleeping man in the corner, or the woman that walks through the doors, clutching her hand to her chest. Steve leaves shortly after a nurse hands her a stack of forms and heads for his car. Billy’s father sits outside, holding a pack of gauze to his nose while he slings every slur in the book that he can at the security guards detaining him.

Billy is safe here, Steve reasons. Billy doesn’t need him anyway. Tomorrow, Steve will go back to work and forget this entire night happened. Robin will understand the dark circles under his eyes, knows about his insomnia too well. She bears her own scars, and wouldn't leave his side even if he asked. He should’ve asked a long time ago. He doesn't deserve her attention, or anyone’s, for that matter.

He doesn’t deserve anything.

-+-

Technically, Steve’s shift at the station doesn't start until noon, but Hopper gives him the official day off in a phone call at five in the morning, waking Steve from a lucid dream about a gremlin eating his toes. He lies in bed for a while, staring up at the ceiling fan while Robin putters around outside his room, humming to herself.

They live on Cherry Lane together, not too far from Billy’s home, further toward the forest and in the opposite direction of where Billy travels. It’s modest, for the most part, two bedrooms and one bathroom, with a kitchen and an office, and a screened porch with two rocking chairs facing the end of the cul-de-sac. Steve moved out shortly after what he’s coined The Incident at the mall, and Robin followed right after, offering to split the rent. She works for the newspaper. Steve is learning to be a detective.

He has his own bank account now, and a credit card with a couple thousand dollar limit he never exceeds. All of their bills are paid, their cars are paid off, and they have a roof over their heads. It’s a quaint life, a modest life, one Steve never thought he’d have.

It doesn't make him feel any better.

Steve waits until Robin leaves for her shift before he crawls out of bed and wanders into the bathroom. His bloody clothes, he tosses directly into the trash can and bags them up, leaving them by the door while he showers. Red washes down the drain, caught in the ends of his hair, under his nails, on every inch of bare skin. The coat is still in the backseat of his car. That too can go to the dump whenever he gets around to it.

He has a mission today, one that doesn’t involve trailing after Hopper or whatever other officer Hopper puts in charge that day. Said mission begins after he dries his hair and pulls on a fresh pair of jeans and a better shirt than yesterday, a more presentable coat. Wallet and keys in hand, Steve locks the door and leaves, heading in the direction of Hawkins Memorial. He passes Billy’s house on the way, finding only his father’s Mercury in the driveway. Hopper never did find Billy’s car. Another thing to look into after this is over.

Snow is still falling when he parks in the guest lot, blanketing the ground in at least two inches, maybe three if he actually measures. Trudging through, Steve makes his way inside the double doors and finds an entirely different nursing staff present, none of which knows who he is or remembers anything about the hours before. The main receptionist points him to the third floor, room seventeen.

“He’s awake now,” Angela tells him, gum tucked into her cheek while she talks. “He really went through the wringer, from what his chart says. You a friend of his?”

 _You could say that_. “Yeah,” Steve says with a nod. “Just worried about him, is all. His sister called me last night and said he was laid up.”

Angela nods and pops her gum. “Go on up, then. His folks just left. Doc came in thirty minutes ago and said he was alert, so just be quiet when you go up, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Steve repeats and offers a shy wave.

The third floor is just as he remembered it—white-walled and boring. He finds room seventeen easily enough, tucked at the back corner of the hall with an empty gurney outside. A chart hangs from Billy’s door; Steve glances at it and reads _Knife attack. Kidney repair. Previous thoracic injury involving punctured lung, ruptured liver. Hypothermia. Non-smoker, previous history of use. Prescriptions: None._

Steve knocks rather than barge in, a light rap of his knuckles to the door. A nurse doesn’t answer, thankfully, and he steps inside, only to find Billy staring right at him from his bed. Compared to last night, Billy looks better, if not exhausted, probably a side effect of the medications being pumped into him. Someone cleaned him up while he was unconscious, doing the bare minimum to wipe the blood from his skin. Lying back, Billy offers a quiet grin, not nearly as scheming as Steve remembers it from high school and the months following graduation.

Just a friendly smile, no ulterior motive behind it. “Harrington,” Billy drawls, syllables slower with fatigue. “Never thought I’d see your pretty face in the daylight.”

Huffing, Steve closes the door behind him. “Yeah, yeah,” he says and pulls up the stool beside the bed, flopping down onto it. “Swear half this town thinks I’m a vampire.”

“Too pale,” Billy mumbles. He closes his eyes and absently scratches at his elbow, careful of the IVs. “Need some sun. Should go to the pool when it gets warm.”

It’s an idea, but he never used the pool much when he had one of his own. “Robin wants to put in one of those cheap plastic things in the backyard,” he says, earning a shallow laugh from Billy. “But you gotta take care of those things, or it’ll turn green, and who’s got that kinda time?”

“They’re not so bad,” Billy says and sits up, adjusting his back. His hospital gown rides down, exposing a silvered scar spanning up to his collar bone. Steve doesn’t want to remember how he got it. “Doc said he gave me your blood, ‘cause you’re the only one in town that’s like me.”

Steve quirks a brow. “You’re AB negative?”

“The family oddity.” Billy opens his eyes partway, the blue of his irises barely visible in the early morning light shining through the windows. “Hey, you’re inside me now.”

Steve can’t help but hide his face at that. Billy laughs, then wheezes, idly rubbing his lower abdomen. “Think your comedian days are over for a while,” Steve offers, patting Billy’s forearm. He’s warm, warmer than he was last night. Three blankets sit over his legs, one of them heated, plugged into an outlet on the wall. “How much do you remember from last night?”

Billy furrows his brow, gaze turned to the ceiling. Steve can practically hear him thinking, trying to spin the cogs in his brain. “I remember walking,” he says, swallowing. “Dad kicked me out. Did… something. Always something with him.” He waves a hand, then sets it atop where Steve suspects are a dozen stitches. “I called you, know that. Robin, your buddy gave it to me.”

“Robin?” Steve asks, watching Billy nod. “When did you meet Robin?”

“Ran into each other at a club,” Billy says. He palms his face with both hands, wincing when the IV tugs. “In Indy, a few weeks ago. Didn’t realize who she was until she said she was from Hawkins, and then it clicked, like,” Billy stops to snap his fingers, the digits not at all working in his favor. “House full of queers, Harrington. How come you didn't invite me?”

Heat flushes Steve’s cheeks, all under Billy’s watchful eye. “We’re not friends, Hargrove,” he says. “We’re not even… acquaintances, or whatever. You know, you’re lucky I even came out to save your ass. I could’ve just stayed in bed.”

“But you came,” Billy says, and—unfortunately, he’s right. “Gotta be something in that frigid heart of yours that cares about me, or else I’d be on the front page of the paper by now. Get a load of this, Former Hawkins High Student Found Stabbed to Death in a Fucking Phone Booth.”

Steve presses his thumbs into his eyes. He doesn’t care. Shouldn't care, but Billy is on the ball today, half-dead and in his head. “So what if I do?” he asks. “It’s not about you, man, it’s my conscience.”

Billy hums and turns his head. A bruise blossoms faintly across his cheek, several indents set deep in his flesh. One is large enough to be a class ring, blooming deep purple in the center. Someone hit him, before they shoved a knife into Billy’s gut. “A man that listens to his conscience,” Billy says, closing his eyes. “Guess I should thank your conscience then. ‘Cause frankly, I’d really rather not be dead. Got too much to do, like getting out of this godforsaken town.”

“Why are you here, anyway?” Steve asks. A reasonable question, after all. Billy graduated the spring after The Incident, by some miracle, and Steve honestly expected him to haul ass the minute he got his diploma. But for some reason, he stayed, and got a job at the auto shop on the other side of town. “Figured you’d be hamming it up across the country by now.”

Quiet, Billy breathes, rubbing his fingers over the incision. “I tried,” he says, whisper-soft. “Got to Kansas and my car conked out. Ended up hitchhiking back. Dear old _dad_ tore me a new one once he figured out what I’d done.” He sniffles. “I’m twenty, man. I can almost buy my own beer, and I’m still stuck here. My car’s in a fuckin’ ditch somewhere, and I can’t remember where the fuck I left it.” Another breath, quicker. If Steve knew any better, he’d swear Billy was crying. “I don’t know what happened, Harrington. I saw the damn light and everything, and I couldn't go, ‘cause something kept holding me back.”

Steve hates the tremble in his hands. “Yeah?”

A nod. “Yeah. Don’t have a clue why. Town’s made it pretty damn clear it doesn’t want me here anymore than I wanna be here.”

Silence passes. Billy continues to rub his incision, and Steve stares at his shoes, a weight bearing down on his shoulders. “I wanted you here,” he says, his own voice foreign in his ears.

Lips parted, Billy glares. “I’m sorry, I didn't catch that.”

“You heard me.” Steve stands and turns his back to Billy, bracing his hands on the windowsill. Outside, cars pass on the street, oblivious to the hospital and the residents inside. An ambulance drives off with its lights on, siren blaring. “You never gave anyone a chance to get to know you, and then you have the nerve to complain about it? You ever think the reason people hate you is because you made them?”

Billy doesn’t answer. Steve hears him turn his head. “I didn't plan on staying here,” Billy says after a while, words thick in his mouth. “Figured if I pissed enough people off, they wouldn't miss me after I hauled ass. Jokes on them, ‘cause I’m still here.” A pause. “Kinda.”

“Christ.” Steve runs his hands through his hair. “You could’ve laid it on a little less thick, you know. If that’s your way of trying to cut everyone off, it didn't work. You know I still can’t feel my cheek?”

Turning, he finds Billy looking away, his hand still. He inhales, then lets it out through his nose, agonizingly slow. “I wasn’t in my right head,” Billy admits. “You don't know what went on—what’s going on at home. Not that it’d make anything better, but it’d… It’d explain a whole lot about me, if you knew.”

Leaning against the windowsill, Steve crosses his arms. Stares, waiting for Billy to face him. “Give me a chance, then,” he says, immediately regretting every single one of his life decisions that led up to this moment. “Stay with me and Robin ‘til all this shit blows over, and I’ll take on your case.”

“My case?” Billy balks. “What am I, some kinda—”

“I’m in training,” Steve explains. “I’m gonna be a detective.”

Billy harrumphs and looks him over. “That explain why you’re dressed like Columbo?” Steve looks down at himself, and—okay, maybe he needs to lay off the trench coats. “What’re you gonna do, become a Pinkerton?”

Maybe this was a bad idea after all. Maybe he should’ve just let Billy die on the side of the road. “Look, do you wanna find out who shived you or not?”

Ever so slightly, Billy’s face softens, the hard edge of his jaw unclenching. Steve mimicks him, shoulders slumped. “I wanna get out of here,” Billy murmurs and rubs his face. “I can’t go home right now. Max’ll cry, but—I just can’t.”

Steve nods and stands beside Billy’s bed. “If it makes you feel any better,” he says, watching Billy look up at him with skepticism, “someone broke your old man’s nose last night. Bled like a faucet.”

To that, Billy smiles. “Couldn’t’ve happened to a better guy.”

-+-

Billy gets released two days later, after the doctors deem him fit to walk without posing a risk to himself. Steve waits in the waiting room while Billy hobbles over from the elevator, dressed in the same bloody clothes he arrived in. “Max snuck some stuff over,” Steve says as soon as they step outside, back into the brutal Indiana winter. Billy shivers. Steve offers him his coat, to which Billy declines. “The couch in the living room’s a pullout, so you can sleep there.”

“Sounds like sweet digs,” Billy says. Steve can’t help but marvel at how genuine he sounds, like the idea of getting away from home might as well be the best vacation imaginable. Even if it is down the street. “I see you on your porch sometimes,” he continues, and— _oh._ So Billy does know where he lives. “Surprised you don't work nightshift somewhere, with how late you’re up.”

Pulling the keys from his pocket, Steve unlocks the BMW and slides into the driver’s seat, afterward popping the lock on the passenger door to let Billy inside. “I have a sleep disorder,” he says. Not entirely a lie, but it would explain why he only manages to get maybe three hours of sleep a night, at the most. Counting sheep doesn't work, nor do pills. His doctor offered him a sedative, once, and he didn't wake up for three days and forgot who he was for half a day after. He flushed those pills as soon as he came to.

Humming, Billy settles into his seat, foregoing his seatbelt. Steve doesn’t blame him, with how low his incision sits. Rifling through Steve’s globe box, Billy says, “should think about white noise,” and comes back with a pair of barely worn sunglasses. They look better on him, anyway. The last time Steve saw them was last year, when his father sent him a pair of Maui Jims as a birthday present, along with a note telling him to quit the police force, or else.

“I’ve been meaning to buy a fan,” Steve says by way of conversation. He switches into reverse and pulls out of his spot, heading for the exit. “It just gets… quiet, especially when it snows. I swear I can hear my own heartbeat sometimes.”

A nod. “It helps,” Billy says with a shrug. “Can’t sleep with all the fucking quiet in this town. Used to hear traffic all the time, but here… Swear to god, I heard a cow one night.”

Steve snorts and pulls out into the street. “There’s a farm a few doors down, the guy owns like… twenty cows and a few horses.” He stops to laugh. “When I was a kid, they used to have a Fourth of July parade, and he’d kinda just, march them through the street. Shit all over the road and everything.”

“Gross,” Billy groans. “Can’t imagine why they’d shut that down.”

“You’re telling me,” Steve chuckles. “I thought I was used to it, for a while, the quiet. But that was before I found out monsters weren’t just the things under the bed. Now it’s just… _quiet_. Like there’s something still out there waiting for me.”

“And is there?”

 _No_ , Steve tells himself. Hopper closed the gate, permanently, and destroyed every last one of them in the process. Still, in the dead of night, Steve still wonders if one got left behind, if there’s one still out there waiting to finish what should’ve happened a long, long time ago. _I shouldn't be alive_. “I don't know,” Steve says, knuckles white on the steering wheel. “I don't think so, but I thought that the last time.”

Soft, Billy hums. “Kinda hope they’re dead,” he says. “Possession’s not exactly the highlight of my life.”

Steve can’t help but laugh at that, and Billy doesn’t plan on stopping him, if the grin on his lips is any indication. They have a lot to catch up on. He never really learned how Billy _survived_ all those years ago, but somehow, he did, and he moved right back in with his dad, and disappeared from society. Sometimes, Steve saw him in town, but not for more than a minute, and they never spoke to each other.

Now, Billy is in this car, and they’re… friendly. Like the past didn't happen. The way it should’ve been, way back when. If only it’ll stay this way.

-+-

Steve’s home isn’t much to shrug at. Small but quaint, he owns a sleeper sofa and a television, and a radio that doubles as a record player and a table whenever it’s not in use. Rugs cover majority of the living room, mostly to block out the creaking floorboards and the drafty spot in the corner where Robin swears squirrels have nested and eaten the insulation. A few paintings hang on the walls, mostly stuff picked up from the one thrift shop in town, but they brighten the walls, reminding Steve somewhat of his old house.

Billy, somehow, fits in the middle of it, like he’s lived there for years. “I need a shower,” he announces the minute he steps inside, Steve at his back with Billy’s lone duffel in hand. “You would not believe how badly I need a fucking _shower_.”

Steve sets the bag down by the couch and watches Billy navigate the living room, his gait slow. He keeps a hand over his incision. “Not to sound creepy or anything,” Steve starts, struggling not to trip over his tongue, “but do you need help?”

The look Billy gives him would terrify him on any other day, the indignation on his face bordering on murderous. He doesn’t make a move to strangle Steve, though, nor does he start spouting off insults. “I don’t need your charity,” he says instead. A red flush highlights his cheeks. “I can walk just fine, Harrington. Don’t need to coddle me.”

To that, Steve shrugs. He removes his coat and hangs it on the rack by the door, brushing the accumulated snow from the shoulders. “I’m just saying, I can help. One of these days, you’re gonna really need it and no one’s gonna be there.”

Billy huffs. His shoulders slump, a hand hanging limp at his side. “Sound just like Susan,” he says, but not unkindly. “Just… Don’t say anything, okay? Lucky I don’t make you wear a blindfold—”

“I’ve seen you naked,” Steve whines—

Billy cuts him off with, “It’s not that.”

Unfortunately, Steve knows what he’s talking about.

Steve leads Billy to the bathroom, situated between his and Robin’s bedroom. Flipping on the light, he allows Billy inside and follows in after, closing the door behind them. Billy glances at the countertop, then toward the tub, thumbs tucked into his jean pockets. Steve ignores the dirty clothes half-hanging out of the hamper and the makeup scattered on every surface and steps closer to Billy, breath caught in his throat.

He should’ve never offered. Should’ve just let Billy take care of himself, but his conscience is a _thing_ lately, constantly nagging him to right his wrongs, to make amends even when he doesn’t think it’s the best idea in the world. Billy tops his list of wrongs, and he never _did_ anything. Billy was the one that tormented him for what felt like years—Billy was the one that tried to kill him over something that shouldn’t have even been an issue. Yet, here Steve is, offering a hand to his sworn enemy, out of… Pity? Longing? Probably the former—the only thing he’s ever longed for from Billy is peace.

For a while, Billy looks at himself in the mirror, running his fingers over the bruise on his cheek, through his blood-crusted hair, greasy and in desperate need of a wash. “I look like hell,” he says and pulls at the sallow skin beneath his eye. “You let me go out in public like this?”

Steve throws his head back. “Not like I had a choice. I’m sure the nurses have seen a whole lot worse.” _You should’ve seen my face. Or yourself_.

Billy doesn’t bother to comment, or do much else other than stare at himself. Rather than stand around, Steve starts the water and tests it under his hand, until the tap runs warm. He turns the middle knob and dodges the spray when it finally sputters from the clunking pipes. “Alright, big boy,” Steve announces, catching the horror on Billy’s face in the mirror. “Clothes off. Either you do it or I’m helping.”

“Frisky,” Billy says, his heart not in it. Steve resists the urge to throw something at him and reaches for the hem of Billy’s shirt. Billy swats him away. “I can do this myself, pretty boy.”

“Sure you can,” Steve murmurs.

Leaning against the wall, he watches Billy slowly tug his shirt over his head, exposing every square inch Steve is all too familiar with from school, but is somehow so different now, three years after the fact. Under the fluorescent lights, Billy’s scars take up a good portion of his chest, silvered and sickly and jagged, ripped between his ribs and into his sides. His arms don’t fare much better, and his hands still bear witness, rough not just from calluses.

Below his navel and just above the waistband of his jeans is a three-inch incision, stitched back together with black sutures. The edges are still swollen and red, and iodine dyes his golden skin an unnatural red, but it doesn't look any less healthy than it should, based on Steve’s personal experience with stitches. It probably hurts, though. _How can he stand_?

Billy tosses his ripped shirt into the trash can, then goes for his pants, belt jangling in his hands. Pointedly, Steve looks away, and doesn’t glance back up until Billy’s jeans hit the flood, along with his briefs. Orange— _weird_. “Eyes up here, genius,” Billy says, and Steve whips his head up, jaw squared. “You wanna hold my hand?”

“Fuck off.” Steve shakes his head and takes Billy by the elbow before he thinks better of himself.

Warm air saturates the bathroom by the time he helps Billy step over the lip of the tub, deflating Steve’s hair. Billy lets out what Steve could very well call a moan when he steps under the spray, water running into his hair and washing blood down the drain. He shouldn't watch Billy, shouldn't even look at him, but he does, marveling at how his muscles contract when he moves, how the scars shift, the silver darkening as the water warms his skin. Mostly, Steve keeps his gaze above the waist, and leaves when Billy reaches for the shampoo on the caddy hanging from the shower head.

Max packed what looks like a majority of Billy’s clothes, including several pairs of jeans and more than enough button-downs to get through a week or two. Steve grabs one of the two pairs of sweatpants and a gaudy yellow flannel shirt and some underwear, mostly as an afterthought, and walks back to the bathroom, only to find the water turned off and Billy already out, toweling his hair dry.

“You didn't have to hurry,” Steve says, offhand, setting the clothes on the countertop. Billy squints at him in the mirror and towels under his arms, then between his thighs, hissing as he bends over. “You need an icepack or anything?”

“Probably,” Billy says, the slightest bit winded. “Had my appendix out when I was a kid, and I swear it didn't hurt like this.”

Iodine still paints the incision, but the rest of him looks… better. Less bloody and more human, minus the bruising that Steve only now notices on his ribs, along with barely-there fingerprints around his throat. Maybe it was more than a simple stabbing, then. From the lack of abrasions on Billy’s hands, he didn't fight back.

After he dresses himself with minimal help on Steve’s behalf, Steve leads Billy bank into the living room, then disappears into the hallway closet, where he pulls out a comforter set and a pillow. Billy waits with infinitely more patience than Steve expected him to have while Steve pulls out the sofa bed and arranges the bedding as efficiently as possible. Not that Billy would probably mind, but the sentiment remains. His mother tried to teach him to be accommodating, but it ended somewhere south, bordering on ‘don't let people overstay their welcome.’

Billy appreciates it, or Steve likes to think he does. The minute Steve finishes, Billy sits on the edge and worms his way into the center, the springs creaking under his weight. “Fuck,” he groans, low, and tucks the blankets over himself, all the way up to his neck. Steve should maybe turn the heater on, but utilities are expensive, and the fireplace on the other end of the room works fine, whenever he lights it late at night and lets it smolder until the next morning. “Mattress at home is worse than this, and that's saying something.”

“Thanks?” Steve says, lips tilted up in a half-smirk. “Stole it from my parent’s basement. Not that they’re gonna notice. Probably don't even notice I moved out.”

“Can’t imagine what other furniture they got,” Billy says, genuinely curious. If he still lived at Loch Nora, Steve would give him the full house tour.

While Billy settles down for the evening, Steve disappears into the kitchen and pulls one of the three ice packs from the freezer, then wraps it in a large dish cloth. Wandering back in, he hands the pack to Billy and sits in the armchair adjacent to the couch, both of them facing the fireplace and the television by the window. They could watch whatever is on, just to ease the tension in the room.

Something heavy weighs on Steve’s mind, though, makes him antsy. “I wanna go back to where I found you,” he says, leaning over and propping his elbows atop his knees. “The snow’s starting to melt, maybe I could see if something got dropped.”

Billy grunts, hand shoved under the blankets, resting atop the ice pack. “Fine, Marlowe,” he snarks, then winces. “But I’m not leaving. Might raid your fridge when you’re gone.”

Steve drops his shoulders, not even bothering to stifle his laugh. “Should be some Chinese in there from last night, if you’re desperate. Robin’ll be home in thirty minutes.”

“Robin,” Billy hums, rubbing an eye. “Gonna gossip about you when you’re gone, you know that?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Standing, Steve waves a hand at him. “Wouldn’t expect anything less from you two, apparently. Didn’t even know you were friends.”

To that, Steve nods. “Yeah, well, better late than never, really.”

Billy mirrors him, closing his eyes. “Better late than never.”

-+-

Cornwallis is only a few streets over, the only road on the south side of town that leads directly into the woods. Formerly, it was an access road for the lab, until the lab mysteriously burned down last year, and with it, all the gates disappeared overnight. Now, it leads out to Lovers Lake and connects to a neighboring highway, and some park Roane County is working on, supposedly for camping and hiking and whatever sane people do in the woods at night. Steve wouldn't know—he doesn’t even look in that direction.

Parking his BMW by the phone booth, Steve steps out and waves a flashlight onto the asphalt, the snow mostly melted, but now leaving slick patches of black ice behind. Hopper taught him to never leave the scene until he found something, or proved beyond a reasonable doubt that there was nothing to find in the first place. So far, all Steve finds is wet earth and trash, a used condom someone tossed into a shrub. A few cans of Pabst sit, half-empty and abandoned, inside the phone booth. Billy’s blood still dyes the glass, but the rest of the interior is as clean as it can be, considering.

After thirty minutes and nine trips up and down the hill, Steve finds nothing. His toes freeze in his boots, and his trench coat does nothing to stave off the chill creeping in as night falls. He pulls the belt tighter around his waist and continues his search, even as his breath shakes, coming out as pure steam. His hands shiver in his gloves, the beam of the flashlight jittering, glinting off something along the side of the road.

Something shiny, solid. Not a beer can, nor a mile marker. Squatting, Steve digs through the slush to find a sizeable ring, with a large garnet in the center and _Hawkins High School_ etched around it. _Evans_ sits on the right side, and 1984 sits on the left, along with a football. The year before Steve graduated. He doesn’t remember anyone with the last name Evans, and he knew most of the football team pretty well, mostly from parties.

Running his thumb over the stone, Steve wonders if it matches the bruise on Billy’s face. It looks the right size, the right shape. “Evans,” he says to himself. Whoever it belongs to might have an explanation.

Whoever it belongs to might have tried to kill Billy.

-+-

“Evans,” Robin repeats to herself, pacing the living room. She walks with a book in her hand, brow pinched as she flips the pages, scanning every name she can find. Meanwhile, Steve sits with Billy on the bed, sharing a container of lo mein and alternating between watching Robin and the fire, now roaring in the fireplace. “You sure it says ’84?”

“Positive,” Steve says, mouth full. At his side, Billy looks the ring over again. Unfortunately, it fits the impression on his cheek; fortunately, they have the owner’s name. “Are they not in that one?”

Robin huffs through her nose before walking back over to the tiny bookcase in the corner. Sliding the yearbook back into place, she pulls out both ’83 and ’85, handing the latter to Steve. “I’m not even sure this is a real ring at this point,” she says and flips open to the junior’s chapter, thumbing through the names. “Maybe it’s a mock-up? Do they do that?”

“Lot of money for a fake,” Billy says. He sets the 1985 yearbook in his lap, then shakes his head at the sports page.

Steve looks and spots the photo of the basketball team that year, taken a few weeks after that night at the Byers’, and almost a month before prom. Faintly, Steve can see the outline of a bruise around his eye, thankfully muted by the black-and-white photograph. Billy glances up at him, cheeks red in shame. Steve offers a smile and nudges his shoulder. _To new beginnings_ , he thinks.

“Did you ever buy one of these?” Steve asks.

Billy hums a negative. “Couldn't afford one. Only saw the front cover when someone asked me to sign it, but I never got to see my picture.”

“Oh, here.” Turning the yearbook toward himself, Steve flips to the junior’s section and finds Billy under the H’s, his picture fourth in the row of five.

Admittedly, his hair looked exceptionally good that day, wild and teased to its max. He smiled, enough to please the camera, his denim jacket the only bit of fabric visible. Mantle-worthy, maybe. Billy scrunches his nose. “I look awful,” he says, then laughs, covering his eyes. “I took Vicodin that day. Surprised I was awake.”

“Shit,” Steve snorts, his shoulders shaking. “Hey, look at mine—”

“I got it,” Robin announces and shoves the ’83 yearbook on Billy’s lap. Billy wheezes, checking to see if any of his stitches popped. “You remember Jeremy Evans? He played quarterback when you were a freshman, I guess.”

Steve thinks—thinks harder, trying to remember anyone who fit Jeremy Evans’ photo. Short-cut hair, a strong jaw, square head—the spitting image of every jock in every movie he’s ever seen. “I don’t think so,” he says, looking up at Robin. “Why, do you think that’s him?”

“Oh, that’s him,” Robin says with a frown. “Only problem is, he’s dead. I remembered because I saw it on the news, a plane went down in Lake Michigan and it killed everyone on board. He was going to visit cousins in Toronto. So that ring—”

“Must’ve been ordered by his parents,” Billy suggests. “Or he did before he died.”

Robin nods and flops down onto the mattress by Billy’s feet. Her hair fans out on the blankets, stark against the white comforter. “So whoever attacked you,” she turns her head to Billy, “must be a sibling, or a parent. But why would anyone wanna kill you, Willy?”

Steve doesn't laugh—tries not to, at least. Thankfully, Billy breaks the silence, and Steve follows along, all while Robin smiles, all bright eyes and teeth.

“Shit if I know,” Billy says, finally, after the laughter dies down. Somewhere in the interim, Steve’s hand ends up behind Billy’s back, wrist brushing up against the fabric of Billy’s sweats. Neither of them moves; neither of them mentions it. “Not exactly Mr. Nice Guy over here. But it’s not like I went around starting fights with the first guy that ran into me.” He stops, thinks, biting his nail. “I don't even know anyone with that last name.”

“But how can a city of like, thirty-thousand have only one person named Evans?” Robin asks, a finger to her lips. Steve wishes he knew the answer.


	3. The Shakedown

Nights in Hawkins are quiet. Always have been, and probably always will be until something bigger comes into town and turns the city on its head. Some nights at home, Billy swears he can hear his heartbeat, hear the breaths of the animals outside, hear the creak of limbs scraping against each other in the woods. Max sleepwalks, sometimes. Susan sneaks into the living room around midnight every night and stands in the kitchen, for reasons Billy can’t begin to understand. Neil snores.

None of it is restful. Every slight noise jolts him from a fitful sleep, and some nights, he sits on the front porch until dawn, and then crawls back into bed when exhaustion finally settles in.

Steve’s house, though. He could stay here for the rest of his life, if Steve let him. In the summer, Steve probably keeps the windows propped open and the ceiling fans running; in the winter, Steve lets the fire burn, its occasional crackle soothing Billy’s nerves in a way he didn't know he needed. When he does wake, it’s without incident, and his flight response doesn't kick in the minute he opens his eyes. Rather, he just lies there, warm under the pleasant weight of one of Steve’s down comforters and kept safe by a locked door. An actual locked door, where no one can walk in, a lock he can control if he wanted to.

For the first few hours after Steve and Robin disappear into their respective rooms, Billy rests, drifting in and out of rem and into consciousness, only to fall back under. Around three in the morning, footsteps creak, pulling him awake slowly, easily. Blinking an eye open, he watches a shadow creep toward the front door, socked feet arched in a failed attempt to keep quiet. Steve looks back, sheepish, dressed in his coat and pajamas with a lone beer in hand.

“Pretty sure they make sleeping pills,” Billy garbles and rubs his face, tongue thick in his mouth. Sitting up, he blearily urges Steve to come sit, anything to keep him inside where it’s warm and away from the tundra outside. Steve, reluctantly, agrees, but not before wandering into the kitchen and coming back with a second beer. “Know me so well, don’t you?”

“Figure you could use it,” Steve says and joins Billy in bed. He shrugs off his coat and tosses it into the armchair, the fabric rustling when it lands. Billy takes one of the beers and pops open the tab, only half interested in drinking it. But Steve offered; he can’t exactly turn him down. “Really sucks in the summer, when I can’t use the fireplace.”

“That why you’re always outside at the ass crack of dawn?” Billy asks, can to his lips. Steve nods and holds his drink in his lap. “Told you, buy a fan.”

Steve lets out a sigh, so long and deep that Billy wonders if he’ll ever breathe again. “I didn’t regret it,” he says. Billy’s heart rate skyrockets. No amount of alcohol can numb him, has ever been able to numb him from this. “Don’t regret it, I mean. When we…”

“When we what,” Billy says, not a question.

They never mentioned it after the fact, and as far as Billy knew, Steve never even _thought_ about it, that night in Fort Wayne. The only room in the motel with a single, and Billy woke up to Steve curled around him. A spur of the moment decision, one made without consulting his higher brain functions, and Steve went along with it, touched him in a way no other boy has since he left home. For years, Billy longed for his warmth again, and then lost it, lost _him_ , before he really got to know Steve beyond what he tasted like.

In the light reflecting off the snow, a steady heat paints Steve’s face. His hands shake, and Billy gives in to temptation, taking one into his own. Clammy, cold from the can, still unopened. Steve’s fingers curl around his, nails pressing into his palm. “I don’t hate you,” Steve says, looking away. “Not like I should. ‘Cause ever since you got out of the hospital, I’ve been telling myself, we’re not friends, we’re not anything, but… Then I remember what you said—”

“Come on, I’d just come—”

“—and I didn’t wanna forget, okay?” Steve sighs, rubs the back of his neck. “You dying really put a lot of things into perspective, I guess.”

Uneasy, Billy takes a swig of beer and sets the can on the coffee table, now pushed against the wall to make way for the bed. He takes Steve’s as well, and shoves the blankets aside in favor of crawling into Steve’s lap, acutely aware of his entire lack of clothing. His only saving grace, the briefs Steve brought him earlier.

Steve clings to him, probably out of shock, holding Billy’s hips and pressing his thumbs into the juts of bone. Billy drapes his arms around Steve’s neck and just looks at him, their foreheads touching, breath mingling on each other’s lips. No one has touched him like this in years, has looked into his eyes like he’s the world, not like Steve does. Not like Steve always has, now that he thinks about it. Hatred to confusion to lust, to admiration—and ultimately, here, sore from a knife to the gut and too sober for his liking.

“I didn’t wanna die,” Billy admits in a whisper. Steve nods, listens. “I could’ve called anyone else, but I called you, ‘cause I knew you still gave a damn, even if you hated me.”

“I couldn't let you,” Steve says. “Even if it was a joke, I… You’ve been through too much. You don't deserve the hand you were dealt.”

Billy lets out a breath through his nose, eyes slipping shut. “Sorry,” he says. Shivers, when Steve runs his hands up the ladder of Billy’s ribs, then to his collar. “Should’ve said it years ago.”

Slowly, Steve nods. “I know,” he says, and seals it with a kiss. Chaste, but laden with heat, with promise.

And Billy wants nothing more than to live in his touch for the rest of his life.

-+-

“Jeremy Evans?” Hopper says later, after the sun has risen and Billy feels more or less awake, aside from the crick in his neck. Hopper flips through Steve’s yearbook at the multiple photos of their former classmate, scratching the stubble growing in along his jaw. “Didn’t his old man work at the quarry before it closed?”

Steve shrugs from one of the two chairs in Hopper’s office, glancing back and forth between Billy and Hopper. “I didn’t exactly pay attention to everyone in school,” he says, crossing his arms.

“And I wasn’t here when he was alive, apparently,” Billy tacks on, to Hopper’s raised brow. Reaching into his jacket pocket, he pulls out the ring and drops it into the crease of the book; Hopper looks it over, thumbing over the gold band. Real gold, too, the kind Billy would pawn if it weren’t the lone piece of evidence in his attempted murder. “Whoever punched me in the face was wearing that.”

Hopper huffed and rolled his chair in the direction of one of the metal file cabinets in the corner of the room. He rummages from shelf to shelf before he comes back with three manila folders, all bearing the Evans last name—Jeremy, Jacob and Maxim. “Sattler left all their files behind after they shut down the quarry, probably too spooked, what with the ‘dead kid’ and all. Thought I recognized the name. Me and Jacob were pool buddies for a while, before Jeremy died. After that, I’ve had to bring him in for public drunkenness.”

Opening the file, he shoves it in their direction—mostly Steve’s, considering they work together. Billy still catches a glimpse anyway, spotting Jacob Evans’ name and photograph, list of prior work history, and a significant number of minor arrests, all for drunken disorderly, drunk driving, or just being drunk in general. “Not exactly a role model,” Billy says.

Stern, Hopper nods. “His other son’s got a record, too. Picks fights at the high school, and he’s won a couple times. Principal’s called me almost every day the last month, saying she’s worried he’s gonna do something drastic, like—”

“Try to kill somebody,” Billy and Steve say, then look at each other.

Anyone else might have laughed. Instead, Hopper sits back in his chair and folds his hands over his gut. Fifteen whole minutes in his office, and he hasn’t smoked. _Must be a record_. “Jacob isn’t the murdering kind. The guy practically lives in Sharon’s Bar after he gets off shift. Now, I have no evidence to say that Maxim did or didn't do this. All I’ve got is a ring and a couple phone calls.” He turns his focus to Billy. “You remember anything from that night?”

Desperately, Billy wishes he did. He barely remembers leaving the house, after Neil threw the first punch and planted him flat on his ass on the porch. He must’ve driven somewhere, maybe into town, or further out, into the woods. _Wait_. “Did you find my car?”

Hopper nods. _Shit_. “She’s fine, but she’ll need some work. Someone keyed the hell out of the side and took a couple swings with a mallet—”

_Clang, clang, clang_ reverberates in Billy’s head. Visions of red flash before his eyes, of a ball-peen hammer smashing into the side of his car, parked not far from where Steve found him. Then a hand to his throat, shoving him onto the road, snow seeping into his jacket, down the back of his pants. He tried to run—got to his feet, but they grabbed him again, covered his mouth while he screamed, while they shoved a knife into his stomach—

“ _Billy_?”

—and threw him into the snow, jammed their knee into his back while they waited for him to bleed out. “ _Fucking murderer_ ,” Billy vaguely remembers them—him, with a voice rough and deep, resembling his father’s but still with some youth behind it—saying, before they raised the knife again—

“Billy?” Steve repeats, touching Billy’s elbow.

Involuntarily, Billy jerks away, then rubs his face, the corners of his eyes coming away wet. “What?” he asks, wiping his hands off on his pants. Both Steve and Hopper stare at him, the former with more concern than the latter. “What, never seen someone doze off before?”

“Sure I have,” Hopper says, elbows atop the desk. “But the last time I saw someone with that look in their eyes? Was when I was out with a buddy and a truck backfired. What’d you see?”

_See_ —“You think I’m having a flashback?” Billy snaps. Hopper’s jaw clenches, and Billy can’t look away, a cold sweat prickling the back of his neck. Still, he charges on, “I’m not broken, old man. I’m not one of those—”

“Post-traumatic stress isn’t just for war vets, Hargrove,” Hopper rumbles, authoritative and everything that Billy hates. “Shit happens to everyone, so don't go around thinking you’re better than any of the rest of us because you somehow made it out ‘better.’” He sits back, knuckles blanched where he tucks them under his biceps. “What did you see, son?”

_I’m not broken_ , Billy lies to himself, the voice in his head sounding eerily similar to the ten-year-old boy hiding from his father in the closet. But he is—has always been, and no amount of discipline and _respect_ and _responsibility_ can fix that. “I think,” he tries, then stops, head in his hands. Steve’s chair creaks, like he wants to get closer. “I was gonna drive to the next county, but some jackass followed me in a yellow Cutlass. It had front plates, but I couldn't read them, but he clipped my bumper and I guess I—I went off the road.”

Hopper nods, pulling out a legal pad from one of the drawers on his desk. He passes it over with a pen. “Write down what you remember.”

Not the first statement Billy has had to give, but it still irks him every time someone asks. Like they don't trust him when he talks, like spoken word means less than when he scribbles with his god-awful handwriting. He does as he’s told, his hand trembling as he writes down the description of the car, of the man that stepped out with a ski mask over his face, his pale blue eyes standing out against the dark fabric. Recalls how the guy yanked open the driver’s door and pulled him out by his shirt collar, then threw a punch with his ringed fingers, the first connecting with his cheek, then his stomach, the scar in the middle of his chest. The knife came later. Black handled and six, maybe seven inches long, it was long and slender with a sawtooth blade on the back. He only caught a glimpse of it when the guy pulled it out, and belatedly, Billy remembers wondering if his guts would follow.

After that, he barely remembers a thing, beyond walking and then waking up in the hospital. By the end, he can barely read his own handwriting, the tears in his eyes blurring his vision. Steve tugs the pen from him and pulls his hand away, closing his fingers around Billy’s wrist. Frantic, his heart pounds, thrumming into Steve’s fingertips. Hopper doesn’t pay them any attention and rolls to another file cabinet, pulling out a folder that Billy knows has his name on it.

“Harrington,” Hopper starts. Steve drops Billy’s hand and sits up straight, probably out of reflex. “If you can find me that hammer or the knife, we might be able to bring this guy in. Until then, this statement is all I have to work off of.” He sits back, propping his feet up on the desk. Their cue to leave. “We clear?”

“Yes, Hopper, sir,” Steve fumbles. Standing, he makes his way to the door, and Billy follows—

Or tries. Hopper clears his throat, and Billy’s blood runs cold. “And Hargrove?”

Swallowing, Billy turns.

Dark blue eyes settle on his own, Hopper’s face softening ever so slightly. Imperceptible, if Billy weren’t looking for it. “I’m sorry that happened to you. We’re gonna find out who did it.”

Slowly, Billy nods, his lungs shivering when he exhales. “Yeah,” he says. It almost feels like a lie.

-+-

Neither the knife nor the hammer are at the scene of the crime—not that Billy gets out and tries to look. Adrenaline, oddly, keeps him rooted in the passenger seat of Steve’s BMW while Steve searches through the snow with the end of his spiked bat, the same bat featured in so many of Billy’s nightmares. He keeps his gaze pointed at his lap the entire time, and doesn't look up until Steve climbs back inside and tosses the bat into the backseat, where it promptly rolls into the floorboards.

Steve cranks the engine, rubbing his hands together. Cold air pumps through the vents, then changes over to warm, a blessing amid the cold. “Hopper said your car’s at the junkyard,” Steve says. A surge of anger floods Billy’s veins, only to be quelled by Steve’s hand on his thigh. “He’s just holding it there until you claim it, okay?”

“He said she wasn't totaled,” Billy complains, petulant. Steve smiles at him and pats his leg, his fingers lingering. “Can we get out of here—”

“I have it too, y’know,” Steve blurts, red-faced. Hands in his lap, Billy looks down. “Whatever Hopper said you have, just… I have it too. Every Monday night, me and Robin drive over to Ms. Byers’ house and we just… try to make sense of it.” He laughs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “It’s not like we can actually see a therapist. I want to, I think it’d help, but… I can’t tell anyone what I’ve seen without them thinking I’m a nutcase. But if I didn't have Robin, or Jonathan, or even Will, I don't… I don’t think I would’ve lived this long.”

Exhaling, Billy clenches his fist, then releases it, watching the white in his knuckles fade.

“It possessed Will too,” Steve continues, softer now. “But Ms. Byers knew what to do, and… I feel like if we would’ve paid attention, we could’ve helped you. We could’ve at least stopped it—”

“Nothing you did could’ve even made a dent,” Billy cuts him off. Tension settles into his shoulders, weighing him down in his seat. “It liked that I was angry. At the world, at my old man, at… How much did Max tell you? Did she?”

Steve nods, pulling away. “She met up with us a couple times when you were in the hospital,” he says, somber. “She blamed herself for a while. I think we all did, but she took it the hardest.”

“How’d you take it?” Billy asks, before his brain catches up to his mouth. Horrified, he watches pain flit across Steve’s face, then sadness, the corners of his lips tilting south.

“Like hell,” Steve murmurs.

So Steve did care after all. All that talk about not caring, about them not being friends was all a lie—and Billy still pushed him away every chance he got, because he didn't deserve Steve’s attention, didn’t deserve his affection. Didn’t deserve anything, and ended up with nothing. Barely a family, barely a home, with more fear than anyone his age should ever have. Twenty years old, and he was still stuck in Hawkins, with no money or way to get back to California, and no friends that he could call his own.

Nothing. _It’s all my fault_.

“Why did you save me?” Billy asks for what feels like the hundredth time, throat aching as his eyes begin to sting. Wiping them does no good, not with several years’ worth of emotion spilling free all at once. “I don't deserve to be here, and you still… You pulled my ass outta the fire, but why? All I ever did was fucking torture you, and you still—”

Steve kisses him—or tries, missing his lips and landing on his cheek. The sentiment remains the same, and Billy tugs him close, tilting his head until they fit together, sharing a lone breath. “Robin thinks I’m an idiot,” Steve says when he pulls away, holding him at a distance, a distance Billy desperately wants to close. “I made the mistake of telling her how we met, and she won’t stop giving me shit for it.”

“Smart girl,” Billy says. His grin wobbles. Steve kisses him, this time hitting the mark. “She tell you you’re a big sap?”

Steve cuts the kiss short to laugh, burying his face in Billy’s neck. “The biggest,” he says, his sincerity falling flat. For a moment, Billy holds him there, running his hand up and down Steve’s spine. Gradually, Steve melts into him, and Billy in turn, lulled by Steve’s warmth and the subtle hint of cologne that clings to him, the same scent from years ago. “Sometimes I watch you, in the middle of the night,” Steve says. “Always figured you couldn't sleep, and I wanted to wave or call you over, but you never looked this way.”

“I’m on a tight leash,” Billy says, only partially a lie. While he could leave in the middle of the night, he always chooses not to, just to stay in Neil’s good graces. He needs food and a place to stay, at least until he can get up enough money to leave, or move out, or—something. Just _somewhere_ that is here. “Used to sneak out a lot, but my old man cracked down. I’m fucking—I’m scared. This is the second time I’ve almost died, Harrington, and I don’t wanna make it a third.”

Gently, Steve strokes across Billy’s cheek, then into his hair, where he pets through the strands. Billy falls into him, shame heating his cheeks. “There’s always my place,” he whispers, secretive. “Just so you know.”

“Think I could live on your couch,” Billy admits. “No one’s ever asked me to stay.”

“They should,” Steve says, and rakes his nails down Billy’s scalp. “You’re good company.”

Billy shivers, long and slow. “Don’t sweettalk me, baby, I might get the wrong idea.”

-+-

For the first time in days, the sun breaks through the clouds, warming the air the minute they make it to the junkyard. Stepping out of the BMW, Billy stands with his head facing the sky, basking in the few slivers of warmth the sky provides. Steve sets out somewhere amongst the rows and rows of cars in the lot, his coat swaying as he moves, so unlike how he used to dress, how he carried himself. Like somehow in the three years they’ve been apart, he’s become a totally different person. More serious, brooding, every trace of innocence stripped from his bones.

He doesn't deserve to have to bear that weight, and Billy doesn't either.

Why Billy never came here during high school, he can’t remember. Doesn’t even think he knew about the place until Max mentioned it offhand a year ago, after someone totaled Neil’s car and Neil took it out on Billy’s ribs. Billy can see the heap of it as he wanders, crushed and sitting on top of a crumpled Bel Air, the engine bay ruined and the driver’s side door caved in. Neil got a Grand Marquis after that, brand new. With what money, Billy wishes he knew, because he certainly didn't chip in for Billy’s medical bills before the hospital ‘took care of it,’ whatever that meant.

It’s nice, though. Quiet in a way Hawkins isn’t, all still air and a lingering sense of dread. He passes a bus, stained with blood on the side and missing all of its windows. Glass glitters in the dirt. Billy doesn’t want to ask how it got there.

The Camaro, when he finds it without Steve’s help, sits in the back of the yard, a tarp draped over it and covered in snow. With gloved hands, Billy slides the tarp off and hisses at the damage he finds—someone keyed MURDERER into the side of his car, and then proceeded to take a hammer to the paneling, along with the side windows. Red stains the front quarter panel, where Billy fell and proceeded to bleed all over the tire.

Looking at it makes him uneasy, his eyes stinging all over again. “Steve,” he calls out, dropping the tarp.

It takes a moment, but Steve eventually winds his way through the heaps of mangled wreckage and stands at his side, rubbing his hands together. “Kinda surreal,” Steve says. Billy nods. _Surreal as fuck_. “Don’t think I’ve ever seen a scratch on her until…”

“Now,” Billy finishes. He rubs his incision over his pants, still tender to the touch. “Okay, Spade, you’re the boss here.”

Steve quirks a brow, the barest hint of a smile quirking his lips. “No offense, but I never took you for a reader.”

“I read plenty,” Billy says, mock-offended. “You can’t pull off that coat worth a shit.”

“Hey.” Steve points a finger at him. “I look better in it than you would.”

_You wanna bet_? Billy wants to say. Instead, he keeps his mouth shut and opts to watch Steve brush the splintered glass out of the window, wiping the shards off on his pants afterward. “You could’ve just opened the door,” Billy starts, but Steve comes back with a wood-handled hammer and a knife, both shoved under the front seat and caked in dried blood. “Holy fuck.”

“Man,” Steve says with a pout. “This is my first real job. Why couldn't it be harder? Y’know, go haunt a bar, find a hot woman in my bed trying to shake me off the case.”

Billy rolls his eyes. “Sucks for you.” _You weren’t the guy who got stabbed_.

Pursing his lips, Steve looks back to the Camaro. His eyes narrow, his hold on the knife slackening. “Why’d the guy write that?”

Again, Billy reads it over, wishing it made sense. “Sure there’s a reason,” he mutters, mostly to himself. _I just wish it didn't make sense_.

-+-

Steve turns over the weapons to Hopper with a short explanation of where he found them, but an even longer one of just what was written on the side of Billy’s car. An hour after the fact, and Billy still chews it over, trying to figure out just what it might mean, and why someone might specifically target _him_ over it. There’s always the obvious reason—the reason Billy has been trying to avoid ever since he woke up with a ventilator tube stuck down his throat and realized just what he’d done. What _had_ been done with his body, against his will.

Three years later, and he still can’t wash the blood from his hands, no matter how many confessions he makes, no matter whatever’s left of his soul he offers up. That has to be the reason. Someone found out, and someone tried to take it out on him and didn't finish the job. And, left the weapon in his car, like they figured the police would suspect Billy tried to off himself, and try to total his car while he was at it.

_Fucking moron_ , Billy thinks.

Sitting on the curb outside of the only Wendy’s in a fifty-mile radius, Billy chews a toothpick while Steve struggles to wipe spilled ketchup off his coat, frowning the entire time. “I think I know why he came after me,” Billy says, head bowed.

Steve freezes, a crumpled napkin still pressed to the stain on his coat. Giving up, he tosses it into the empty bag between them and turns to Billy, a foot tucked under his knee. “I saw you thinking,” he says, then taps Billy’s temple. “You got this vein right here—”

“Alright, alright.” Billy brushes him off. Steve’s fingers are warm when they touch, a beacon amid the cold. “Look, I haven’t exactly… talked about it with anyone. Not even with Max, and she was there. Wheeler figured out what the things were made of, and I…” He turns his head, looking at the side of Steve’s car. Pristine, never had a dent on it. _Lucky her_. “I wasn’t asleep.”

Steve’s frown deepens. He looks over his shoulder when two girls step out of the restaurant, shoulders bumping as they head to their car. A jealous twinge sours Billy’s gut. What’s left of his lungs for a cigarette. “So you—How much do you remember?” Steve asks.

Billy turns his attention from the girls back to Steve, then to the pavement. slick from melting snow. “For a while, everything,” he admitted, lowering his voice. “I didn’t sleep for days at first, ‘cause all I remembered was the… I knew what it looked like, and I knew every single person it killed to make its… body, or whatever the fuck it was.” He laughs, covering his eyes with a shaking hand. “I’m just now starting to forget. Three fucking years, and I’m finally able to sleep without seeing it in my dreams.”

Silence follows. Not exactly comfortable, but silence nonetheless, interspersed with cars trudging through the slush and teenagers riding bicycles down the sideway. A few of Max’s friends pass by. Steve ducks, covering his head with his coat. “You don’t talk to them anymore?” Billy asks.

“Sometimes,” Steve says, wistful about it. “Not often. Dustin still comes around, but they’re all like… juniors now, with attitudes.”

“God, I know.” Shaking his head, Billy lets his hair fall into his face. “Max is horrible about it. I mean, she’s great and all, but she _knows_ she is. Try telling her she’s wrong, I dare you.”

Rather than reply, Steve laughs, his grin almost reaching his eyes. “You should come with us. You don’t even have to talk, but…” He stops, looks down at his lap. “Sometimes you just need someone who gets it. You don’t have to be alone forever, you know.”

Objectively, Billy knows. But in the past, it was so much easier to hold everyone at arm’s length, just so if and when he left, he wouldn't leave anything behind other than a trail of broken hearts and fleeting memories. At the time, that included Steve. Now, Billy doesn’t know if he can live without him, and not just because Steve is the first warm body that’s touched him outside of violence in the last three years. “I’m not good at… explaining it,” he says. “I’d probably just bum everyone out.”

Softly, Steve laughs. “Dude, we’re already bummed out. Join the club. Ms. Byers makes the best cheesecake, that’s worth it alone.”

He should go—should at least listen, but getting out of the house will be a challenge. But he can make it work, just lie and say his boss needs him to work overtime because he hasn’t been in the shop lately. That would make sense. Responsibility to his job, since according to Neil, being violently stabbed is no excuse to slack off. Never mind that standing for more than five minutes at a time hurts, but he can deal with it. Dealt with it the first time, and he can do it again.

“When is it?” Billy asks.

“Tonight,” Steve says, looking at his watch. “We normally all get there at six. You don’t have to go, I just thought it might be—”

“I’ll go,” Billy cuts him off. Anxiety flares, bright and sickening, but he wills it down, digging his nails into his sides. _Make friends_ , he scolds himself. _Even if they are all fucked up_. “But only for the food. You’ve gotta learn how to cook, man.”

Steve laughs, arms over his stomach and head between his knees. “Yeah, well, I can’t cook, but I’ll bake your pants off.”

-+-

According to Steve, Ms. Byers moved not too far from Hawkins after the Starcourt fiasco, into a small three-bedroom home with a sizeable plot of land, hidden a ways off in the woods. Steve drives down the dirt-paved path leading up to the property while Billy balances a pie tin in his lap, warmth still spilling through the aluminum foil and into his jeans. It smelled great in the kitchen—apparently Steve is good at something after all—but Steve refused to let him touch it, no matter how many times Billy nagged him for a crumb.

This far away from town, the stars shine bright in the sky, shining pinpricks of white in the darkness. Billy stares up at them while Steve and Robin pile out of the car and cinch their coats tighter; trapped in the abyss, Billy feels the stars stare back, feels the world spin until Steve touches his shoulder and grounds him, roots him back into the earth. Snow falls, light and airy. Steve smiles at him, the tips of his ears and nose red in the cold. “C’mon,” he whispers and nods towards the brick-walled home, lights shining through the windows. “It’s warmer inside.”

Steve takes the pie and walks inside, Robin rushing ahead and Billy at his back, hands in his jacket pockets. Inside, the smell of cinnamon and vanilla assaults his sinuses, quelled quickly by the popping of the fireplace and the gentle noises of the record player droning on in the living room. Somewhere, a voice reminiscent of Jonathan’s talks; he rounds the corner, his previously placid face brightening the second he spots Steve and Robin—then dims upon seeing Billy.

A kid rounds Jonathan and steps into the hallway, almost the same height but incredibly lanky given his age. The hairs on the back of Billy’s neck stand, and his heart clenches with the inexplicable urge to run. There’s nothing wrong with him—nothing wrong with any of them, but a connection sparks between them, one Billy desperately wishes was a fluke.

Thankfully, another voice breaks the tension. “Oh, you finally came,” a woman announces and drags Billy into a hug before he can even look at her. Her head comes up to his chest but not much further. All Billy can see is a mass of brown-and-graying hair, then brown eyes looking up at him with fondness. “Steve’s said so much about you, Billy. Come on, come on.”

Ms. Byers then, Billy presumes. Drawing back, she takes his wrist with a near-bruising grip and drags him down the hall and into the living room, where a fire roars in the fireplace and the television plays the nightly news. She sits him on one of the two couches, one Burberry and one red plaid, both scratchy on his hands. A Christmas tree sits in the corner of the room, hastily decorated but with wrapped presents underneath, including one vaguely shaped like a model plane. He could be wrong—it could be a crossbow. 

Steve flops down beside him, his attitude a bit lighter than it was in the car, Steve’s brooding exterior melting away with the warmth. From company, Billy recognizes—a feeling he hasn’t exactly felt in a while, not since the few times he actually looked forward to visiting his cousins in Fresno. A place to go to for solitude, away from the rest of the world.

Billy decides he likes it here, even if he is surrounded by people he barely knows. And, having Steve’s arm around his waist doesn’t hurt, his hand slipped underneath Billy’s shirt and resting over the small of his back while no one watches. “Your hands are fucking ice,” Billy complains, but doesn’t shove Steve away, not even when Steve hides a kiss behind his ear. “I’m serious, did you grope a snowman?”

“That’s what I have you for,” Steve whispers, just on the edge of sultry. Billy packs that sound away for another day and studiously attempts to ignore Steve when Jonathan steps into the room, an entire chocolate-covered cheesecake in his hands. Robin follows with Steve’s apple pie, and the youngest of the group—Will, he guesses—comes in empty handed, his mother following close behind.

Everything about tonight feels so… alien. Wrong, like he shouldn't be here, with people who could possibly care about him, who would listen to his grievances given the chance.

Jonathan and Robin set the food down and Robin arranges the table with paper plates and forks, while Jonathan takes a record off one of the many shelves surrounding the fireplace, replacing the tinkling of piano keys with even more piano, but this time with drums. Nothing Billy’s familiar with, but it’s nice background noise, regardless.

“Alright,” Ms. Byers announces as she enters the room, taking a seat in the plush armchair seated between the two couches. Jonathan takes a spot beside Robin, and Will fills the empty space beside Steve, legs crossed on the cushion. “Should we have a theme night, or should we just go around the room? It’s almost Christmas, we could say what we’re thankful for.”

Robin blows a raspberry, earning a chuckle from Will. “Cheesy, but it’s better than having to go caroling,” she says.

Ms. Byers rolls her eyes. “Fine, then you get to go first, Robin. Though, caroling is an idea—”

“God no,” Billy snuffles into Steve’s shoulder. This time, Will laughs, and Ms. Byers smiles wide.

For a while, Billy listens to the conversation slumped against Steve, chalking it up to exhaustion. The last few days have been the longest of his life, and no one would probably blame him if he fell asleep right there, enveloped by Steve’s warmth. No one ventures too deeply into topics, for which Billy is thankful, but when the discussion turns around to him, he opts to pass his turn. No pressure, no questions asked, just a gradual shift elsewhere.

Until Jonathan asks how Steve’s job is faring, and the memories come flooding back. Idly, Billy rubs his incision and fights to not hide his face. Hiding would mean embarrassment, would draw more attention to himself than being there already does.

“Hopper said I could become junior detective for Roane County by the end of spring,” Steve says, sounding every bit like he did when Billy saw him in the hospital: stern, serious, back to the man he barely recognizes. “I kinda stumbled on something right now, and I’m working on that.”

Something he’s working on—like Billy is a chore to him. And realistically, Billy _knows_ Steve can’t exactly announce it to the world, but it still stings. Steve hooks a thumb into Billy’s beltloop. “I got attacked,” Billy blurts, his mouth moving faster than his brain. The room falls silent, barely a breath. All he hears is the soft hum of the piano and weights shifting. “Stevie here found me.”

Head bowed, Steve nods.

“Oh, Billy,” Ms. Byers says from her chair. He watches the multitude of possibilities flit across her face, each of them more horrifying than the last. “Do you know who the guy is? Because we could always—”

“Mom,” Jonathan cuts in, palming his eyes. “We’re not taking a field trip to beat someone up.”

“But they attacked Billy,” Will says. He glances between Ms. Byers and Jonathan, then to Steve, all while Robin bites her finger, holding back a laugh. Honestly, Billy wants to see Ms. Byers try, just to see if she’s as menacing as Steve said she is. “They could still be out there!”

“We have an idea,” Steve says. Subtly, he leans further into Billy’s space, fingers cradling his hip, out of sight. If he could, Billy would live in his hold, too caught up in his warmth to even think on his own. “But do we have to talk about that now? There’s gotta be something—”

“I wanna talk about it.”

With reluctance, Billy pulls away and wraps his arms around his stomach, mindful of the stitches. He should probably go get those removed soon, anyway. He can’t exactly remember when the doctor said to come back in. There’s probably a paper somewhere with instructions. Steve took all of his paperwork when they left the hospital, and both of them promptly lost track of where it went.

And to the best of his ability, Billy tells them. About his father, about being kicked out for the night and driving off. About being hit from behind and dragged from the car. He leaves out most of the gory details for Will’s sake, and skips right to where Steve found him, then waking up in the hospital. Vaguely, he wonders how Steve felt when he found him, what he must have seen. Not that he expects Steve to tell him, but that’s for another day, a conversation just between the two of them.

“We found a ring,” Steve explains after Billy stops, throat too thick to continue. Just remembering hurts—thinking about it, even more. “And Robin found the guy in the yearbook, but he’s dead.”

Ms. Byers narrows her eyes, sitting up straighter. “How dead?”

“Couple years,” Robin says, then turns to Jonathan. “Hey, do you have your yearbook?”

Jonathan nods and walks to the opposite end of the room, pulling the volume off a shelf lined with other yearbooks and photo albums. He hands it to Robin from behind the couch and watches her flip through the pages, eventually coming up with Jeremy’s photograph. Joyce takes the book when offered and looks at the photographs, her nail tracing the name. “Give me a second,” she announces, setting the book next to the cheesecake. Billy’s stomach clenches, mouth watering in hunger.

Ms. Byers searches through one of the higher shelves, eventually finding what he wants. Jonathan pulls it down and hands it over. All eyes settle on her as she flips from page to page. “That’s what I thought,” she says, and flips the book around for Steve.

There, in the middle of the yearbook sits Jacob Evan’s picture, the spitting image of Jeremy. Captain of the football team, the thought of children nowhere in his immediate future.

“I dated Jeremy’s father for a month when I was a junior,” she says, not looking too pleased about it. “I remember when Jeremy died though, he took it really hard.”

“I think I remember the other one,” Will says. He rocks from side to side, looking at the ceiling. “I think his name was Max… Maxim? It sounded Russian. I liked his name. He was a year ahead of me, so he should be a senior? He was real mean though, he used to shove me into the bleachers in gym.”

Ms. Byers’ face sours. Red paints Jonathan’s neck, a vein pulsing in his forehead. “You can’t change the past,” Billy says. Once, he _was_ Maxim, was the bully everyone feared in school. And given the chance, given if his parents were entirely different people, if his circumstances were different, he wouldn't be the man he became: cold, distant, in desperate need of affection. But the past is the past, and he survived. Will survived, too, whatever it was that he experienced. A trauma too similar to his own, one he longs to forget. “Should just be worried about getting him through his senior year, not some asshole with more muscle than brain.”

At Steve’s side, Will nods. “He’s not the only one, mom. But it—it doesn’t matter, not really. No one bothers me anymore.”

Steve pats Will’s shoulder, smiling. Something profound sits in the gaze they share, some past Billy can’t even begin to understand. Until 1985, the only monster Billy knew was his father, and then one possessed him, took him for a joyride for the better part of a week and murdered a good chunk of the town. And until earlier in the week, he had no friends, barely spoke unless it was to Susan or Max, or even Neil if he felt like entertaining Billy’s existence for the day. These people know each other, grew up together.

Billy barely knows Steve. Doesn’t know if he should try.

“There’s a rumor going around school,” Will says, chin resting on his steepled fingers, “that his girlfriend died at the mall. I hear people talking about it sometimes at lunch.”

Jonathan lifts a brow. “What do they say?”

Will rocks again. “There’s a conspiracy, you see. No one’s really put thought into it, but someone started saying… that Billy was responsible for Starcourt.”

Billy’s stomach sinks. No one speaks a word.

“It keeps changing every day. Like, one day, Billy filled the mall with toxic gas, and the next, he locked all the exits and started a fire in the Yankee Candle. But in the end, everyone still dies.” Will shakes his head. “It’s easier to blame someone when they’re not around, I think. When they can’t stand up for themselves.”

_I should’ve stayed dead_ , Billy thinks. Because now, it makes sense. How the rumor mill travels, how one idle thought can bloom into a full blown coverup, fraught with intrigue and mystique, all centering around one person. The one person who didn't want to be here in the first place, but ended up here anyway, alone and angry. _It liked that I was angry_.

“So Maxim could blame Billy for his girlfriend’s death,” Steve says, turning to Billy. Billy refuses to look at him, refuses to do anything other than breathe and try not to cry. “But he’s never even met Billy, how—”

“Anger does bad things to people,” Robin says. That, Billy understands. “He’s probably not thinking, or maybe he needs an excuse.”

“That doesn’t mean he should take it out on me,” Billy snaps, then flinches. A warm hand presses to his nape, fingers teasing the edges of his hair. “I didn’t—” he starts, then hiccups. _Damn it_. “I didn’t do it, I swear. And nothing I did could’ve changed it, but it’s…” He wipes his face, his hand coming away wet. “It’s been years. Years, and sometimes, I wake up, and I’m back there again. And I’m watching it happen, and there’s nothing I can do.”

“We know you didn't,” Ms. Byers says, soft. Motherly, in the way Susan tries to be but never quite accomplishes. The way his own mom was, before she walked out and lost custody in the divorce. If she were closer, he knows she’d probably hug him and tell him it’s alright. As it is, he has Steve and the hand massaging his spine.

Will, however, does move. He weasels his way between the coffee table and the couch, worming around Steve’s legs to stand before Billy. Slender fingers cover his shoulder, impossible strong given who they’re attached to. “It’s not your fault,” Will says. Billy looks at his own shoes, Will’s socked feet. “It’s not either of our faults. It took both of us, it used us, but we have to… We have to move on, Billy. We didn't deserve what it put us through, but it’s gone now. It can’t hurt us anymore.”

_Anymore_. Sometimes, Billy wishes it would, just so he can die in peace, like he was supposed to the first time. Like Neil always wanted. One less person in the world to burden everyone else. One less terror hidden behind blue eyes. One less _him_.

“Billy,” Jonathan says, his voice somehow making it through the fog in Billy’s brain. Looking up through the shadow of his hair, he spots Jonathan heading toward the back door. “Come with me for a minute?”

Steve’s hand stills on the small of his back. Ms. Byers nods to Jonathan, Will mirroring his mother. Sprawled across the couch, Robin looks to the ceiling with her hands folded on her stomach. “Go,” Steve whispers. “He’s not gonna kill you.”

_That’s not what I’m worried about_ , Billy wants to say. He wouldn't fight back, if Jonathan really decided to go through with it, but the idea of walking into the woods right now, right after allowing himself to _feel_ , for the first time in years—he could really go without it.

Making his way to his feet, he stands before Will, barely an inch separating them in height. The fierceness in his eyes betrays his age, his youth fraught with certain death and things Billy doesn’t like to think about on the best of days. Something about him makes Billy want to try, want to keep fighting, not just for himself, but for everyone around him.

“Thanks, kid,” he says, clapping Will’s shoulder.

Will smiles as he leaves. For once, with all eyes following him, Billy doesn’t feel quite as lonely.

-+-

Jonathan hands him a bat as soon as they reach the clearing beyond the trees, the handle worn from repeated use. Holding it in his hands, Billy looks out at the pristine lake before them, lined with snow at the banks and frozen solid. Slivers of moonlight glance off the surface, too bright to look at. A large tree rests away from the rest of the woods, about five feet around and jutting high into the sky, the bark splintered off the base. An inkling of an idea crosses Billy’s mind.

“Talking helps,” Jonathan says, taking his own bat in hand. The black paint has almost worn completely off, leaving behind a muddy brown. “But I come out here sometimes, when it gets quiet.”

“And you take it out on a tree?” Billy asks, to Jonathan’s sheepish nod. “Kinda badass, Byers. Didn’t think you had it in you.”

Jonathan shrugs. “Stress relief. You look like the kind of person that’s more action than talk. So,” he points the bat at the tree, “talk it out. Get it out of your system.”

It’s an idea, one Billy hasn't entertained for quite some time. His doctor would probably advise against it, but his lungs are better now. He can walk around town and work on cars without getting winded within the first five minutes. Standing before the tree, he smooths his hand down the handle of the bat and hoists it high over his shoulder. The first hit reverberates up his arms and into his shoulders, temporarily knocking the wind out of it.

It’s good—feels good, to finally have control back in his hands. “Talk to it,” Jonathan says. “No one’ll hear you.”

It feels weird at first, saying it out loud. The Hargrove household runs on fear and ignorance, abuse hidden behind smiles and blind eyes. Billy hides the worst of the bruises with Max’s foundation and sunglasses, but even then, it’s not enough. “I didn’t do it,” he says, grunting with the impact. A splinter flies into the dirt. “I didn’t—make her leave.” Another. Pain sings through his fingers, through the scars. “If you hated her so much, why’d you fuck her? Why’d you have me?”

_Because you’re useless_ , Neil’s voice answers, the demon on his shoulder. _Because you’ve never amounted to anything_.

“I was a kid,” he shouts. His voice blends in with the crack of the bat, of the crows flapping their wings in the canopy. “It’s not my fault—she hated you. That was—all on you.” A breath, a harder squeeze. “She was the—only mother I ever had—and you made her—leave. And while we’re at it.”

He stops and spins around, the stars above swirling, spiraling. He lands another hit, the thwack echoing across the lake. “You raised a fucking fag. You did everything you fucking could—but you still couldn’t beat it out of me. I didn’t deserve to get my face beat in every night. I didn’t deserve—the fucking insomnia, the fucking fear—all ‘cause I look more like her than you.”

Billy sucks in breath after breath, ignoring the wetness of his hands, the definite red staining the bat’s handle. Splinters—he’s had worse. He can suffer through it, just like everything else.

“I didn’t deserve to die,” he says, verging on a scream. Pain keeps him going, even after his shoulders twinge and his lungs struggle to keep up. “I didn’t deserve to lay in that bed for three months. I needed—I needed someone there, but no one came, ‘cause you fucking _threatened_ my own _sister_.” Tears spill—his stitches pull. “I had no one, and I still have no one, and it’s not fucking—not fucking _fair_.

“I wanted a life, _dad_ , I wanted—something different. I was happy at home—and you dragged me here by my hair—and you tried to fix me, but all I did was die. I died! Is that what you wanna hear!” He beats into the dirt with the bat, watching snow scatter, mud flying and dirtying his toes. “I should’ve stayed dead! Then I wouldn't have blood on my hands—and I could rot in hell like everyone else. I killed those—I killed them all, and it made me do it.”

Another swing. Blood slips between his fingers, rubbed raw. Jonathan never says a word. “I should’ve died,” he screams, wild, manic. “I should be dead, I should—I should’ve gone through with it, I should’ve pulled my own plug—I can’t live like this.” Gagging, he sucks in air, wills down bile. “I never did anything to anyone, why did it have to be me? I just wanna be left alone. I just wanna…

“Why?” Billy asks the sky. The stars don’t answer—they never have. “Why can’t I just be up there?”

Silence. Not even the wingbeats of birds, not even Jonathan’s footsteps. A hand brushes his shoulder. Billy wrenches around, the bat still in hand, only to find Steve staring at him, horror and anguish in his eyes. Gasping for breath, Billy turns away and dry heaves into the snow, dropping the bat. Everything hurts. He flayed his soul open for the world to see, and Steve watched him and never spoke, never asked questions. Those hands—those cursed, loving hands—hold him while he sobs and gags, while his hands bleed bloody marks into his jeans. At some point, Jonathan says something, and Steve answers—whatever it is, Billy can’t hear over the blood rushing in his ears.

The world is too big, he thinks, and no one cares. No one has ever cared, and no one will. “You should’ve never found my heartbeat,” Billy says to Steve, his throat scraped raw. Neon flickers before his eyes, a vision of dark hair looming over him, shouting for a medic. “You should’ve just let me die, Harrington.”

Steve shakes his head and gets a hand around Billy’s waist. “C’mon,” he whispers, just as quiet as the snow. “Let’s go home.”

-+-

Consciousness finally rears its head sometime later, long after Steve pulled the BMW into the driveway and helped Billy inside, after Robin helped to wrap his hands in washcloths and laid one over his eyes. He fell asleep like that, wrapped in blankets and kept still, comfortable, tremors still wracking his limbs.

Hours later, and Billy aches, from his face to his stomach, every muscle pulled taut and strained. A soggy bag of peas sits over his stomach, once probably frozen but now thawed and unpleasant. The fire crackles. “Steve,” Billy whispers—tries, at least. Fabric rustles, and a weight settles at his side, steady. “Steve.”

“Shh.” Gingerly, Steve peels the rag off his eyes, revealing the dark of the living room and the snow falling outside, thick flakes covering the porch railing. His face feels bruised in the way it hasn’t in years, not since the first time Neil hit him, not since his mother… “It’s okay, it’s okay.” He takes Billy’s hand—the one wrapped in gauze—and presses a ice pack into his palm. The cold is good. Grounding, if not terrifying, offset by the fire warming the room and Steve’s presence.

Tears spill down Billy’s cheeks, soaking into his hairline. Steve strokes his cheek, brushing them away. “How much did you see?” Billy asks, swallowing past the burn.

Steve sighs through his nose, his gaze falling. “More than I should’ve.”

And he leaves. Only for a moment, but Billy laments his loss, blindly reaching out for him as he goes. Steve comes back with water and a few Ibuprofen, and helps Billy to sit up, mindful of his hands. In the past, he would’ve chased the pills with alcohol and hoped it killed him. That was in the past, long before he realized how precious water was, and how good it felt after work, after a run, after crying his eyes out. Steve takes the glass away after he finishes and sets it on the table between the couch and the armchair. Most importantly, he stays.

Billy wishes he would always stay.

“How’s your head?” Steve asks, crawling further onto the pull-out and sitting at Billy’s side. Their thighs brush, Steve’s clothed, Billy only in his underwear. Someone stripped him, and Billy would bet his left kidney Steve was involved.

“Think someone replaced my brain with cotton,” Billy says. With his—slightly—better hand, he tosses the bag of peas into the armchair. No loose stitches, then. Small miracles. “Kinda wish I was still asleep.”

Nodding, Steve presses their shoulders together. Billy leans on him, head resting atop Steve’s shoulder. “Jonathan’s a good guy,” he says. “The second time we did these little meetings, we went out back after, and we did the same thing. That tree probably hates us by now.”

Billy huffs a laugh.

“I just remember… I cried so hard,” Steve continues. “Like, I didn't think I’d ever stop. I didn’t realize I was so… angry, at my parents, at Nance, at everyone, but there’s… I can’t change other people. I can’t change the decisions they make, and I can’t not hurt whenever something doesn’t go my way.” A sigh. “Doesn’t mean I can’t wish. Sometimes I wonder what it’d be like if my parents never left me like they did, if they actually cared. It’s funny, I told Ms. Byers one night, and she threatened to kill my dad. Like, got on the phone and everything, and Hopper had to keep her from screaming at him.”

Billy can just imagine it now, Ms. Byers trying to climb Hopper to grab the phone. “I wish I knew what to do,” Billy says after a minute, wiping his nose. Steve offers him a tissue; Billy tosses it to the end of the bed after he defiles it. “I shouldn't be living like this. Isn’t this child abuse? Adult abuse?”

“I think it’s just abuse,” Steve says, no humor in his voice. “I told you, you can stay here. I can turn our office into a third bedroom, it’s not a big deal. We never even go in there anyway—”

“Harrington.” Billy pats Steve’s thigh, feeling him tense. Slowly, Steve softens, and Billy strokes up the inside, mostly for something to do. Steve doesn’t complain once. “You know I…”

He can, that’s the problem. In May, he’ll be twenty-one. More than old enough to make his own decisions, but somehow, he always ends up back home, with a lock on the outside of his door and a bedroom window that never opens, no matter how hard he tries to pry the wood apart. Stuck in Hawkins, stuck in Indiana—and somehow, still alive, despite attempts otherwise.

“You can’t stay there,” Steve says. “And I hate to say it, but I’m the only friend you have right now. I’m offering you a place to stay, no charge, so just… take it. Don’t fight me on this, Hargrove, please.”

_Why would I_?

Steve pushes off the couch, warm skin fading from reach. Billy grabs him before he can leave, clinging to Steve’s pale wrist. All these years, and he still hasn't bothered to stand in the sun for more than five minutes at a time. “Stay here,” Billy says, practically a beg. His eyes sting at the thought of rejection, of Steve kicking him out at his most vulnerable.

Steve does nothing of the sort. Sighing, he pulls the blankets back and crawls underneath, and urges Billy down with him, until Billy tucks his arm under a pillow and Steve drapes one over Billy’s wrist, holding him. _Holding_ him, legs dovetailed, bodies incredibly close.

Billy holds the icepack between them, trembling when he readjusts his grip. “Is it gonna get easier?” he asks. “Any of this, does it get easier? Or am I supposed to feel like shit for the rest of my life?”

“I don’t know.” Steve chews his lip. “Can I tell you something? Something only Robin knows.”

_Huh_. “You didn't tell your friends?”

Steve shakes his head. “A couple months after… I came home from work and swallowed my mom’s Vicodin.”

“Shit,” Billy hisses. He sits up like looking down at Steve will give him clarity. All he sees instead are deep brown eyes staring up at him, and all at once, it clicks. Steve’s posturing, the cynicism when they’re alone together, the forced smiles when Robin is around. He’s just like Billy—he’s seen death at his own hand. “How many?”

“The whole bottle,” Steve confesses and closes his eyes. Billy’s heart breaks for him. “Robin found me and called the ambulance. I don’t know why I did it, and I told the psychiatrist that every day after they admitted me. It was just… impulse. I just wanted to stop burdening everyone. And then after I got back, Robin kept looking at me like I was broken, and I just got so pissed. I’m better than that—”

“None of us are better.” Brushing the hair away from Steve’s eyes, Billy presses a kiss to his temple. “Life sucks, and then we die. But not yet.” He tips Steve’s chin up, meeting his wide-eyed stare. “I don’t matter. My life doesn’t matter. I’ve never done a damn good thing while I’ve been alive, but you’ve saved people, Harrington. You’re a better man than I’ll ever be, and you’re not giving up. I’m not gonna let you give up, you hear me?”

A tear wells in the corner of Steve’s eye, spilling down his nose. “How can you think of yourself like that?”

_Because no one’s ever cared before_. “Because I broke a long, long time ago,” he says. “There’s no coming back from what I’ve seen.”

Steve huffs. “That’s bullshit, and you know it,” he says, then shoves Billy into the mattress, pinning him by the shoulder. Pain surges through the muscle, his heart beating against his ribs. “You don’t get to give me a pep talk while putting yourself down. I don’t know everything about what your dad did to you, but you’re better than that, man. You’re better than him, and you know it, and you gotta believe it.” He jostles Billy, his eyes wet. “I just got you back.”

_I was always yours_ , Billy aches to say. “You shouldn't give a shit about me.”

A smile flits across Steve’s lips, fleeting. “Too late. My house, my rules, and rule number one?”

“I swear to God, if you start quoting Goonies—”

Steve pushes his shoulder, his grin meeting his eyes. It’s a good look. Billy always liked his smile, back when he wore it with pride. “Fine. Rule number two. If something’s wrong, talk about it, with either of us. Let us help you.”

Slowly, Silently, Billy agrees. _I don’t need help. But I want it._ “Anything else I should know about?”

“Yeah.” And Steve kisses him, soft and sweet and everything Billy has ever wanted. “No other rules.”

-+-

Someone knocks early in the morning, waking Billy from a dream filled with waves and sand and warm arms around him, holding him in the surf. Blinking, he rubs a hand over his mouth and stares into Steve’s half-lidded eyes. His heart stutters. Steve slept here, even when he didn't have to. An arm drapes over his arm beneath the covers, and a knee rides up his thigh, solid and firm and close enough to be interesting.

And now, someone is interrupting that moment with their incessant knocking.

“Harrington,” Hopper barks on the other side of the door, now moved on from gentle taps to outright banging. “I can see you through the window, open up.”

“Fuck,” Steve hisses, deflating like a balloon. Rolling over, he leaves Billy cold and bereft. Hopper saw them—anyone could see them if they tried hard enough. Terror floods his gut, only to be quelled by Steve’s hand to his stomach. “Key’s under the flowerpot, Hop.”

“Can anyone just walk up here?” Billy asks while Hopper complains outside. He watches Hopper search the four pots on the porch before coming up with the correct one, plucking the key out from underneath. “My dad could see—"

Steve yawns and stretches his arms above his head. “I’m a light sleeper. Besides, Ms. Marshall has cameras on her porch, and she blows an air horn every time someone ‘suspicious’ walks by.”

“Fuck,” Billy laughs. “You know how many times Neil’s called the cops on her?”

Hopper turns the key in the door, opening it just in time for Billy to cover himself and Steve to slide out of bed, still in his pajamas and hair a rumpled mess. “Would it kill you to close the blinds?” Hopper rumbles. Not that Steve particularly cares.

“Would it kill you not to look?” Billy snarks back, earning a glare from Hopper.

Sighing, Steve wanders into the kitchen. The Mr. Coffee on the counter bubbles to life; Hopper follows it, magnetized. Might as well get up, then, if everyone else is awake. Billy can’t tell if Robin is here or not; her shoes sit by the front door, but her jacket is missing. Rolling out from under the warmth of the blankets, Billy searches his duffel for a decent pair of pants and a shirt, throwing them on before he joins Steve and Hopper in the kitchen.

Based on Hopper’s expression, something happened. Something dire. “We were able to match the prints from the knife to Maxim Evans,” he starts, arms crossed. “The only problem is, we can’t find him.”

Billy leans back against the wall, the only thing keeping him standing. Maxim is missing—Maxim might be looking for him. “Like, missing missing, or—”

“The Cutlass was spotted at the Hawk two hours ago,” Hopper says. The coffee finishes. Steve hands each of them a mug, and Billy cradles it, allowing it to soothe the ache in his hands. They look awful—everything about him does, probably. “I have an officer looking for any sign of it, but we’re coming up with nothing. It’s entirely possible that he’s left town, but we can’t spend all day looking.”

“What if he went back to the junk yard?” Steve asks, mug to his lips. “I mean, he was stupid enough to leave the knife in Billy’s car, maybe he went back to try and hide it again.”

A plausible excuse. “Wouldn’t he have done that days ago, though?” Billy asks.

“Unless he found out you’re alive,” Hopper adds, and—that makes sense. “I’m beginning to think he’s obsessed with you, Hargrove. No one leaked the attack to the paper, thanks to Buckley, but he’s somehow managed to find out when you were released.”

Looking down into his mug, Billy wishes the coffee would burn his throat raw.

“Billy has a theory,” Steve says, hip against the counter. “Technically, Will came up with it, but Billy figured it out. Maxim’s supposed girlfriend died at Starcourt.”

Hopper hums and downs half of his mug in two swallows. Billy gawks, horrified. “So there’s your motive,” he rasps, eyes on Billy. “He barely knows the story, but he put together the pieces he needed to come up with someone to blame.”

“Just my luck,” Billy sighs. He can’t drink this. Can barely eat if Steve asked him to, his nerves on edge. Maxim is out there somewhere, possibly looking to follow through this time. And worst of all, Billy doesn’t want to die. Not now, not when Steve is within arm’s reach, not when Steve looks at him like that, all of the love in his heart filtering through his eyes. Looking away, Billy stares at his bare feet, toes curled. “I didn’t—”

“We know you didn’t.” Hopper places a wide, strong hand on Billy’s shoulder. “I was there. I saw the aftermath, but it’s not like we can tell the world what really happened. Just know that what you did for my daughter,” he grips Billy tighter, “you’re a hero. And no one can take that from you.”

Hero. A _hero_ , after what that thing made him do. He can’t wash the blood from his hands, not even two years later. Ghosts haunt his nightmares. People watch him in passing, pity on their faces. Why did he get to live instead of them? Why was Heather buried in an empty grave? _Why_? “I’m not a hero.” Billy shakes his head. “I just did what I had to. That doesn’t make me…”

“What you did mattered. To people you didn't even know.” Hopper claps his shoulder before he lets go, downing the last of his drink. He sets the mug on the dining table and turns to Steve. “I left Martin in the truck. We’re heading back out to the junkyard, so Harrington, either you can follow or go on your own.”

“What, am I supposed to just sit here then?” Billy asks, accusatory. “I’m the guy that got stabbed, and you’re gonna sideline me?”

“It’s too dangerous to put you on the street like you are,” Hopper says.

But Steve comes back with, “And it’s dangerous to leave him here. Maxim could find out where he’s staying and kill him here, and then what? Then we went through all of this for nothing.”

_And then I’m dead, which wouldn't be terrible_ , Billy’s mind supplies.

Hopper considers Steve, pulling a cigarette from the pouch in his jacket pocket and lighting it. Steve turns up his nose when Hopper exhales a cloud of smoke. “Fine,” he relents and reaches into the back of his pants, pulling out a spare gun. Why a cop in a town this smell needs more than one, Billy has no clue. He takes it anyway, hates the feel of it, the weight in his palm. He can take a life with this, even faster than he ever could with his fists. “It only has one shot,” Hopper says. “Try not to shoot anyone with it unless you have to. Am I clear?”

“Yes, sir,” Billy says on instinct. A frown crosses Steve’s lips.

Hopper shakes his head. “I’m not your father, Billy. Just a ‘yes’ is fine.”

He leaves without so much as a goodbye, the door clicking quietly on his way out. The screen door follows. Billy places his mug and the gun on the table and wipes his hands on his pants, trying to rid himself of the responsibility it entails. “Billy,” Steve says, soft. He wraps both arms around Billy’s neck, and Billy falls into him, weakly clinging to the back of Steve’s shirt. “You don’t have to go—”

“I’m gonna,” Billy decides, despite the sudden ache in the pit of his stomach. He shouldn't, but as long as Maxim is out there, he can’t sit still, can’t even sleep without imagining how it might go down, or how he just might not wake up the next morning. “I can’t sit here while the bastard’s out there gloating about it.”

Steve huffs. “You think he’s gloating?”

“I know it,” Billy says. “He’s me, just three years younger. ‘Cept, I used my fists and not a fucking meat cleaver.”

“I appreciate you not using a meat clever,” Steve says and pats between Billy’s shoulders. “You’re sure?”

Billy nods, only half sure. “I want this over with,” he whispers. “I’m tired of all the feelings going on.”

Snorting, Steve hugs Billy tighter. “It’s kinda nice. Never thought you had any ‘til now.”

A breath. “Started to think I’d never get them back.”

-+-

Hopper searches the junkyard and the upper side of town, patrolling specifically around the remnants of Starcourt and the auto body further down the main drag. Steve, however, drags Billy all over the south end, starting around Cherry Lane and circling the streets, eventually ending up on Cornwallis. Snow piles up once again on the sides of the road, the streets already succumbing to another round. Another hour or two, and they’ll be stuck out here unless Steve has chains in his trunk. Knowing him, he probably does.

“Say we find him,” Billy starts, eyes trained on the road, “what do we do? I mean, as much as I’d love to punch his lights out—”

“We can’t just beat him up,” Steve says, ever the voice of reason. “Though I wouldn't stop you if you tried.”

“Think you’re listening to the devil on your shoulder,” Billy quips, earning a shy grin from Steve. “What happened to your conscience?”

Shrugging, Steve tightens his grip on the wheel. He makes a right onto a dirt road, one Billy vaguely remembers as a back entry to the quarry, probably used when it was still in operation. “It’s still there,” he says, “but I think it made an exception.”

Billy’s face burns, throat thick. Rather than reply, he watches the snow-covered trees pass at a crawl. Potholes dot the road, full of mud and meltwater and rattling the suspension when Steve apparently hits every single one. It takes his mind off of Steve for a moment, his attention more focused on grabbing the handle on the roof and holding on for dear life. If Maxim doesn’t kill him, Steve will.

The quarry comes up with nothing, aside from a parked pickup sitting at the water’s edge with its windows smashed in. Parked a few feet away, Billy walks over with his hands shoved in his pockets and kicks a rock clear across the lake, listening to it skitter and echo up the cavernous walls. Perspective is strange, he finds; looking down, the distance doesn't seem quite so steep, but looking up, he doesn’t know if he could ever make it to the top. “Never been down here before,” Billy remarks, looking over at Steve. “Normally thought the only way I’d end up down here is if I jumped.”

Steve exhales steam and glances up, squinting. Snow fall onto his face, melting against his cheeks. “When we were younger, me and Nance and Jonathan came here a few times, before they built the pool. Couple of the seniors used to throw parties and we always hitched a ride and swam until the cops showed.”

“Sounds fun,” Billy says. He can imagine it, the acoustics of the music and screams all spilling into the air, the splash of water, maybe a bonfire if they cared to bring kindling that far down. In the middle of winter, the quarry sits still, silent save for if a blew flies past, or Billy kicks another rock. Steve finds one and chucks it, the resounding crack resembling more of a gunshot than anything Billy kicked.

Which means—

“William Hargrove,” someone shouts, and the hairs raise on the back of Billy’s neck. “Turn around so I can see you when you die.”

“Shit,” Billy whispers, panicked. Steve stands still at his side, staring straight ahead. Never before has Billy seen his eyes so wide, the fear in them verging on hysteric. He doesn’t breathe—neither does Billy. He tries to remember where Hopper’s gun is—in the back of his pants, because Hopper didn't think it was necessary to give him a holster, and Steve is already wearing his. Any sudden movement will set the guy off.

_I’m really gonna die here_.

“I’m turning,” Billy says, heart in his throat as he lifts his hands. He turns and steels his jaw, acutely aware that Steve apparently doesn't plan to move, much less save him if the time comes. _Some help you are_.

About fifteen feet away and a few steps from the broken-down truck stands Maxim Evans, all cropped blonde hair and muscle, without a brain in his head. He snarls and raises his pistol, antique and patinated in a way that reminds Billy of museum pieces, aimed at Billy’s face. “Should’ve known you’d walk your ass away,” Maxim drawls, swaying when he steps. _He’s plastered_. “’Cause I can’t do nothin’ right, ‘pparently. Should’ve gotten the job done in the first place, put a bullet in your head. That’d make us even.”

Swallowing, Billy lets out a breath. “Steve,” he whispers, barely moving his mouth. “You got a plan?”

“I’m trying to see if I have to shoot him,” Steve says back. “I’ve never actually fired a gun. Hopper gave it to me.”

“How many guns does the guy have—”

“Shut up,” Maxim shouts. Billy flinches, teeth clenched. “Shut up, you fuckin’—fuckin’ fairy ass pansy, you fuckin’ killed her—”

“I didn’t kill anyone,” Billy says back, loud enough to echo through the quarry. “I don’t know who gave you that idea, but whatever happened, I didn’t do it.”

Maxim keeps walking, slow and uneven, tripping over his feet. Rocks skitter. Billy takes a step back, the soles of his shoes touching the frozen surface of the lake. “You were the only one there,” Maxim slurs and spits into the sand. He shakes the gun, inching closer. “’S what the news said, William Hargrove, the only fuckin’ survivor. Meanwhile, my bitch is dead, all ‘cause of you.”

“I told you, I didn’t do it.” Another step. Out of the corner of his eye, he spots Steve looking at him, an arm slipped into the interior of his jacket, a hand on his pistol. When he was a kid, Billy watched A Fistful of Dollars and every Clint Eastwood movie he could find on the television, and marveled at quick shooters in westerns. Even if he wanted, even if Maxim weren’t hammered, he would never be able to get the gun out of his pants in time, could never defend himself. All he had was his hands and his wits—

Neither of which have ever worked for him in the past. Thoughts thrown to the wayside, Billy charges and tackles Maxim to the ground before he can fire, yanking the pistol from his hands and chucking it onto the lake’s surface. Steve follows and pulls his gun from the holster while Billy struggles to keep Maxim still. Maxim is strong, like Billy was years ago when he worked out and could hold his breath for more than ten seconds. Not that Billy isn’t now, but Maxim holds the upper hand—and Maxim slams him across the face with his fist, sending him into the dirt.

Black seeps into the corners of Billy’s vision, consciousness spinning, waning. Steve shouts something, but all Billy hears is a shout, then a crack. Silence. _Steve_ , he thinks, and spots Steve lying prone on the ground, unconscious. _Don’t die you me, you idiot_.

Maxim yanks him up by the roots of his hair, and shouts a laugh while Billy screams, clawing at Maxim’s wrist. He pulls the gun from Billy’s pants and fires the only shot into the air, the noise ricocheting off every surface. Billy’s ears ring. The barrel presses to his temple, still warm. “Tell me you killed her,” Maxim rumbles, tugging harder. All Billy can do is scream. “Tell me you fuckin’ murdered my bitch.”

“That’s not how you talk about your girlfriend,” Billy spits. Maxim slaps him across the face with Hopper’s gun, then throws Billy into the dirt. Rearing back, Maxim slams the toe of his boot into Billy’s stomach, right over the stitches—and Billy howls, turning onto his front to protect himself—

“No, no.” Maxim grabs him by the hair and yanks him back up; Billy claws at him, gasping for whatever air he can find. “Say it, you little whore.” A hand closes around his throat, squeezing tight. Further away, Steve moves, struggling to stand, and Billy closes his eyes. _Don’t let him see me die, don’t let him—_ “Say you murdered her, you fucking f—”

Whizzing, followed by a succession of zaps—Maxim wrenches away and collapses to the ground in a spasm, leaving Billy to roll onto his side in the aftermath. Dirt on his face and panic in his veins, he watches Maxim twitch and scream, writhing from the two nodes jammed into the back of his neck. Connected to the nodes, Billy follows two sets of wires and finds Hopper at the end of them, a _taser_ in one hand and his hand on the pistol in his belt.

“Mother fucker,” Billy wheezes and covers his stomach. The noise stops. Maxim groans, mouth shocked into a perpetual hiss. Lifting a hand, Billy finds his fingers bloody, thankfully not nearly as bad as the other night. “Steve—”

“Harrington,” Hopper calls. Steve answers, the words slurred and unintelligible. “Do I need to call an ambulance, yes or no?”

“I’m fine,” Steve bites out. Only then does Billy settle, dropping his hand back down. _He’s safe, then_ , Billy thinks. “Shit, Billy—”

Feet scuff the ground, followed by knees; Steve touches his face, little more than a pat before he brushes Billy’s hands out of his way and goes for his zipper. “Whoa, whoa,” Billy croaks, only to see Steve rip open his fly and reveal the broken stitches and the red staining his briefs. Not as bad as before, but still. “Fuckin’ tired of hospitals,” Billy hisses. Steve refuses to let go. Billy shoves him off, his attempt earning him a hard pat to the chest. “Christ, hit a guy while he’s down—”

“Shut up, just—shut up, Billy.”

Steve lies next to Billy—or, more accurately, flops down—while Hopper rolls Maxim onto his stomach and drags his hands behind his back, slamming a pair of handcuffs around his wrists. Still conscious, Maxim tries to fight back; Hopper hits him with the butt of the taser.

“You good?” Billy asks while Hopper reads Maxim his rights, while Maxim grumbles out a string of words that might be English, might be a combination of languages, or not words at all. Reaching over, he pats Steve’s stomach, in search of Steve’s hand. “Pretty boy, you good?”

“I’m good,” Steve croaks, then laughs. “We gotta go back to the hospital.”

Billy shakes his head. “I wanna go to Florida,” he says, to Steve’s bewildered stare. “The beach, Disney World, I don’t give a fuck. Anywhere but here. Somewhere where it’s sunny.”

Quietly, Steve nods and takes Billy’s hand in his, lacing their fingers together. “Hospital first,” he promises. “Then the beach.”

“Good.” Lying there, Billy watches the snow fall, lip between his teeth. His heart rate slows in increments, the pain in his stomach lessening to a steady ache. The blood slows. He closes his eyes and listens to Steve breathe, to the barely-there sound of nature. “Think I’ll take you up on your offer,” he decides. “One condition.”

Steve hums. “What’s that?”

Billy laughs, soft, and squeezes Steve’s hand. “We’re sleeping in your bed, how’s that?”

Squeezing him back, Steve agrees. Simple as that.


	4. The Departure

Steve rents a house on the far edge of Mexico Beach, away from the scant few tourists in town and even farther from the locals. Raised up on stilts, it overlooks the Gulf and bakes in the December sun. Compared to Indiana, Florida is a godsend, with temperatures in the seventies, with blue sky as far as the eye can see. Even standing on the porch, he can feel the sand between his toes, permeating everything it touches. Mainly, his hair, but for the first time in his life, Steve could care less.

Because he’s here, and Billy is down on the beach, lazing on a towel wearing nothing but swim trunks and a smile. Gathering up his towel and his sunglasses, Steve walks down the stairs to join him, treading the sand dunes and making his way to the shore. Sand covers his feet by the time he spreads out next to Billy. Some good flip flops are.

“A whole week,” Billy says, arms pillowed behind his head. His Wayfarers sit close to his face. Underneath, Steve notices his eyes are closed. “A whole week here, and you spent the whole first day sleeping.”

“You did too,” Steve shoots back. Grabbing the sunscreen between them, he pours a generous amount into his palm and starts with his arms and shoulders. That garners Billy’s full attention. “You also begged me to spoon you—”

Billy throws sand at him. Steve balks and tackles him into his towel, laughing when Billy bats at his face. Two weeks—two weeks of living their normal lives, and Steve finally managed to weasel enough time off to take Billy away, and Billy never blinked an eye, just climbed into the Camaro and drove. The Camaro this time, after Billy popped all of the dents free and gave her a new coat and paint and stripes, because road-tripping in comfort was entirely out of the question.

Not that Steve minds. Any time with Billy is good enough, no matter if the car is his own or Billy’s screaming metal death trap he calls American engineering. They still ended up here, and Steve gets to keep Billy at his side, scars and wild hair and all. His lips, Steve loves most of all, and relishes in their softness when they kiss, the sun baking down on his back and Billy’s hands in his hair.

For a while, all Steve feels is Billy’s wandering hands and the gentle press of his tongue, and heated breaths when they break apart for air. “You look better here,” Steve says between kisses. “Warmer, like—”

Billy pinches the meat of his ass; Steve yelps and twists a nipple, garnering a strangled moan. “Don’t tease me,” Billy says and draws Steve into another kiss. Lips press to Steve’s throat, Billy’s tongue joining in as he licks the sweat from Steve’s skin. “You could use a tan. Looking at you hurts my eyes.”

Laughing, Steve ducks his head. “Don't lie. You’d look at me all day if you could.”

A loud, almost obnoxious smile crosses Billy’s lips, his tongue peeking through. “Good thing I got time now, don't I, baby?”

“Yeah.” Fingers to Billy’s chin, Steve tips Billy up to kiss him. Billy holds him close, his touch hotter than the sun could ever be. “Got all the time in the world, now.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hello all! I finally finished this! I've been reading a bunch of Raymond Chandler lately, so sue me. I also really like the idea of Steve in a trenchcoat. Also it's hard to write a noir when only one person smokes, whoops. But I hope y'all like this! I'm gonna... go work on my book and maybe write Supernatural again because I've been slacking off this year OTL.
> 
> Title is from the Ashley Monroe song.
> 
> I'm on [tumblr](http://tragidean.tumblr.com) and [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/loversantiquity).


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